D&D General Cautionary Tale with DnD Beyond Account

[MNblockhead]

Thought I would share this as both a cautionary tale and to see if anyone else has done the same thing and if they were able to resolve it.

Living up to my user name, I recently did a blockheaded thing and unlinked my Google account from my DDB account. The only account I left linked was Discord. I wasn't thinking or paying attention and didn't realize or forgot that the Discord link was only for the Avrae bot. So now I'm locked out of the DDB website. I can still access characters and content from Avrae but can't log into the DDB website.

When I try to log in with Google (or Apple, or Wizards, or Twitch) it creates a new account without access to my subscription or any of my content. Again, my account isn't deleted, I can still access it with Avrae bot in Discord, but I can't get into the website. Looking at old receipts, I see they were sent to an e-mail address I no longer use and no longer exists. I'm guessing I forgot to change it in my DDB account settings, so my Google address doesn't match the e-mail address in my DDB account.

I've been going back and forth with support by e-mail. I'm hoping that since my Discord account is still linked, I can prove my rights to the account with that. I also have receipts from old purchases.

While I accept my role of my inattention in this, I'm also a bit salty with DDB that it is possible to lock yourself out in this way. If the only way to log into DDB is with linked accounts, you shouldn't be able to unlink every account leaving you with no way to log in.

 

[Clint_L]

Thought I would share this as both a cautionary tale and to see if anyone else has done the same thing and if they were able to resolve it.

Living up to my user name, I recently did a blockheaded thing and unlinked my Google account from my DDB account. The only account I left linked was Discord. I wasn't thinking or paying attention and didn't realize or forgot that the Discord link was only for the Avrae bot. So now I'm locked out of the DDB website. I can still access characters and content from Avrae but can't log into the DDB website.

When I try to log in with Google (or Apple, or Wizards, or Twitch) it creates a new account without access to my subscription or any of my content. Again, my account isn't deleted, I can still access it with Avrae bot in Discord, but I can't get into the website. Looking at old receipts, I see they were sent to an e-mail address I no longer use and no longer exists. I'm guessing I forgot to change it in my DDB account settings, so my Google address doesn't match the e-mail address in my DDB account.

I've been going back and forth with support by e-mail. I'm hoping that since my Discord account is still linked, I can prove my rights to the account with that. I also have receipts from old purchases.

While I accept my role of my inattention in this, I'm also a bit salty with DDB that it is possible to lock yourself out in this way. If the only way to log into DDB is with linked accounts, you shouldn't be able to unlink every account leaving you with no way to log in.

I'm sure that support will be able to help you resolve this; I hope it doesn't take too much longer. What a pain in the butt - it must be very frustrating! With regards to your last point, I'm not sure that DDB or any other site can prevent you from doing what you want with your account, including unlinking it.

 

[Len]

I'm not sure that DDB or any other site can prevent you from doing what you want with your account, including unlinking it.

They should certainly make it a bit more difficult to unlink your only login so you don't do it accidentally.

Hopefully you can get this fixed soon @MNblockhead - I'll bet it's a problem they've had to deal with before!

 

[aco175]

I have another cautionary tale from last week involving registering for convention slots and TableTop Events website.

I bought my gaming group event badges to the local convention and I do all the registering and badge picking and such to make it easier to get slots together and partly since my father cannot even turn on the internet. This year I am running game. 8PM the other night, the registration open for picking tickets for games. I pick 4 tickets for the night EPIC game and 4 tickets for the morning game- no problem. I try to pick tickets for the other three people in the 1PM slot and cannot since I am running something in that slot.

Luckily another rep was online and quickly answered an email about something to try. By this time, I'm watching all the tickets get gobbled up for the games we ant to play and becoming a bit frustrated. I needed to make another account under one of the other people and make them a 'friend' to my main account. Then, I was able to gift them badges of the other three people. Then I was able to get tickets to the game in the same timeslot I was running something. At least I did not need to make three more accounts.

A bit of a pain, but it all worked out. Not sure why they register games by email and not by the badge number.

 

[GMMichael]

I'm sure that support will be able to help you resolve this; I hope it doesn't take too much longer.

That would be nice, wouldn't it? If DDB is like most things corporate, actually getting a person on the phone who understands your problem, and is enabled to fix it, will be an ordeal of its own.

Blockhead, I sent you an XP in the hopes that gaining a level speeds up the process.

 

[MNblockhead]

DDB support resolved it and reconnected it to my Wizards account. To be fair to DDB support, their response times were very good. I generally sent an e-mail in the evening and had a response by noon the next day. It took three rounds back and forth, but the first round was my fault because I didn't explain the situation well. I was still trying to understand what I did and explain it well.

The second round, I think the support tech just saw my username and looked up the associated account, without fully reading the e-mail. In the third round I was able to show my link from discord, give links to some of the characters in my account, and the link to my DDB profile, plus a bunch of receipts from prior purchases. I don't really fault the support folks (well maybe the 2nd person, since they obviously hadn't read my full e-mail). I have to take responsibility for doing a dumb thing. Don't update or edit accounts late at night when you are tired folks!

With regards to your last point, I'm not sure that DDB or any other site can prevent you from doing what you want with your account, including unlinking it.

You're right to a point. I do think there should be a warning if you try to unlink the last linked account. Even better, they should not let you unlink all accounts unless you are actually asking to delete your account (and, again, only after clear warnings). If they are going to rely on SSO with third-party platforms for login, I think this is important.

Nearly all sites I use that offer sign-on from third-party platforms also have an option for their own site's login credentials. Logging in with Google, Apple, etc. are additional options. I always use the sites' native login as I like to keep platforms separate. Anyway, it makes sense to use my Wizards account for this. Kinda dumb of me to unlink it in the first place. Lesson learned.

I couldn't find anyone else asking or writing about this online, so this is clearly not a common issue, but if someone else does run into this issue, hopefully this thread will come up in searches and be helpful.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Thought I would share this as both a cautionary tale and to see if anyone else has done the same thing and if they were able to resolve it.

Living up to my user name, I recently did a blockheaded thing and unlinked my Google account from my DDB account. The only account I left linked was Discord. I wasn't thinking or paying attention and didn't realize or forgot that the Discord link was only for the Avrae bot. So now I'm locked out of the DDB website. I can still access characters and content from Avrae but can't log into the DDB website.

When I try to log in with Google (or Apple, or Wizards, or Twitch) it creates a new account without access to my subscription or any of my content. Again, my account isn't deleted, I can still access it with Avrae bot in Discord, but I can't get into the website. Looking at old receipts, I see they were sent to an e-mail address I no longer use and no longer exists. I'm guessing I forgot to change it in my DDB account settings, so my Google address doesn't match the e-mail address in my DDB account.

I've been going back and forth with support by e-mail. I'm hoping that since my Discord account is still linked, I can prove my rights to the account with that. I also have receipts from old purchases.

While I accept my role of my inattention in this, I'm also a bit salty with DDB that it is possible to lock yourself out in this way. If the only way to log into DDB is with linked accounts, you shouldn't be able to unlink every account leaving you with no way to log in.

It needs repeating, keep recovery email addresses up to date. What you did will lock you out of any site, since you de-credentialed your login address.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It reminds me of the time I locked my nephew out from accepting friends requests on xbox. He played a lot at my house when younger and his dad told be to use parental controls and my account as the parent unit.
Roll forward a number of years and the kid is now nearly adult but not quite 18 and all concerned are willing to allow him to accept his own friends but have not gotten around to change the account. I was experiencing some problem (cannot remember what) but one of the tech pages recommended fixes was to defriend everyone and factory reset the box.
This orphaned the nephew's account, now he could not accept friends but there was no associated adult to confirm or change his status.
This got elevated through several levels of tech support before some bloke in Seattle fixed the issue.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Unfortunately this is a very common problem all across anywhere that uses email-linked accounts. Which is pretty much everywhere, including widespread in the corporate world. (Source: have worked in corporate I.T.-adjacent for 25 years.) A noticeable volume of our team's support tasks relates to people who no longer have the email address / got locked out of the email address / changed jobs and have a new email / changed their name (and thus email) for any reason / etc. etc. etc.

I don't know of any good solution. Just here to commiserate.