Outage update and data workaround

Hello DMs,

The outage of the official URL, improved-initiative.com, is still ongoing. Based on my conversations with Azure support last week it could be a while longer, or I might get lucky and it could be sorted next week.

In the meantime, instead of sitting on my hands, I wanted to share a couple of workarounds in case you're having difficulty with account sync or the backup URL.

The backup URL can still be accessed at https://improved-initiative.herokuapp.com/. If you've been using account sync, you'll be able to seamlessly access your data there.

If you need to retrieve your local data from the website, there's a workaround involving your HOSTS file. Your HOSTS file allows you to override where particular web domains go for your computer. On a Windows machine like mine, it's located at  C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts. Add the following line to the end:

174.129.128.48 www.improved-initiative.com

You should then be able to access the site with your browser at https://www.improved-initiative.com/e/. Be sure to include https and /e/ in the URL when you visit it in the browser, and click through any security warnings. Be aware that this workaround is not a security best practice. I can't provide personalized guidance for this process, but manipulating your hosts file is a well-documented process and can also be done on a Mac.

If you're having trouble with the DnD Beyond StatBlock Importer, you can configure it to import statblocks to another URL. Check out the settings page for the extension to change the target URL.

Again, apologies if this has cause inconvenience for your games. Thanks for the understanding and the kind words over the last week or so. I'll keep you updated as I get concrete news.

-Evan

Update 2/13

Azure Support has informed me that it will be 45-60 days from the expiry date before the domain can be recovered, which puts me out into mid March. I guess we're hanging tight until then. Having the domain down is a lot worse for me than for any one user; existing users can use the backup site but new users can't find the website through search engines. Anyways, fingers crossed for a miracle!