www.makemkv.com

I received the Connery Bond UHDs for Christmas. I've been using Makemkv for years with no trouble (I ripped a disc only 9 days ago). Today, I tried to rip Thunderball and You only Live Twice, and got the message "Automatic HK download disabled or failed". The tgz files show in the Makemkv directory. Where do I get the hashkey files on this site? What exactly am I looking for?

If the automatic download is not working, it is likely that your system is blocking contact with the Russian host that it is maintained on. This can be via DNS (the usual way) or other means. There are topics pinned to the forum (such as "hkdata.crabdance.com or hkdata.fairuse.org not found") that describe how to bypass many limitations.

Thank you. I was able to find a workaround by downloading the keydb.cfg file. For future reference, might I be able to download the hashkey by using a VPN?

That depends on your VPN, but likely it can work. Most systems USED to work via your internet provider blocking the DNS; if you could find the IP, they worked just fine, but looking them up by name came back with an invalid entry. Later systems do that PLUS block your actual call to forbidden IPs. That's where the VPN shines.