Copying a DVD under Linux wasn’t a problem for a long time. I always used k3b. However lately I failed to copy a DVD.

k3b would say: "failed to retireve all CSS keys" or in german "es konnten nicht alle CSS Schlüssel geholt werden". k9copy would say: "libdvdread: Error cracking CSS key for /VIDEO_TS/VTS_03_1.VOB (0x0031ccb6)!!"

First I thought k3b didn’t have access to libdvdcss. However it turns out that aparently some DVD drives won’t return data from some sections of a disc if the region code of the drive is not set.

My drive is a “HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20N”. After setting the region code with "regionset" I was able to copy the DVD. Thanks a lot to the population of the internet that allowed me to slowly progress to a solution…

In short:

$ sudo apt-get install regionset
$ regionset
[...]
Would you like to change the region setting of your drive? [y/n]:y
Enter the new region number for your drive [1..8]:2
New mask: 0xFFFFFFFD, correct? [y/n]:y
Region code set successfully!

Region codes can be found here

Tomáš Pospíšek