I reinstalled Quake 3 today, and downloaded the CPMA 1.48 archive from playmorepromode.org.

However, anytime I try to enter a map/host a server, the game gets stuck at the "Awaiting Connection" screen. I then have to use the task manager to shut it down, and my desktop's colors become distorted (extremely bright) until I start Q3 again and quit it the normal way.

I had this problem the last time I tried Q3 as well. That time, I used Windows XP SP3, while this time I'm using W7 SP1.

Any suggestions on what I could do to make CPMA work?

In case I did anything wrong in installing CPMA: I copied the "cpma" folder from the archive into the Quake 3 folder, and copied the contents of the archive's "baseq3" folder into the installed Q3's "baseq3" folder.