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3.6 When a Payment Fails
3.0 Subscriptions & Payments 3.6 When a Payment Fails

Sometimes a payment does not go through. A card expires, or a bank declines the charge. This section explains what you will see and how to fix it.

What you will see

A campaign with a failed payment is paused. As the Game Owner, opening it takes you to a page titled "There is something wrong with this campaign subscription", with a link to your subscription settings. Your subscription page also shows a red banner at the top containing a Clear Subscription Error link.

Your players are shown very little, on purpose. They see a page titled "This campaign has been paused", asking them to contact the Game Owner. They are shown nothing about billing: not the tier, not the amount, and not the reason. A payment problem stays between you and us.
Players: do not click "Leave Campaign" on that page unless you intend to fully depart from a campaign. A paused campaign is temporary, and your Game Owner can fix it. None of your data has been deleted. The red Leave Campaign button on the paused screen is permanent: it moves your characters to the NPC Codex and deletes your inventory, items, personal links, adventure notes and events. Message your Game Owner and wait instead.
Getting the campaign back

The cause is usually a card that has expired or been declined, so start there:

  1. Go to Billing Information and update your payment method (3.4).
  2. Return to the campaign's subscription page and re-select the tier you want.
  3. If the banner is still showing afterwards, click Clear Subscription Error.

The campaign opens again once the subscription is active.

If you would rather not keep paying

You do not have to repair a card to get your campaign back. Moving to the free tier is a valid choice, and all of your data stays with the campaign. On the subscription page, click Clear Subscription Error. When a subscription has already been cancelled, or has expired after a failed payment, this button changes the campaign to the free Peasant tier and the campaign opens again immediately.

A payment problem never deletes a campaign. Whatever state the billing is in, the campaign and everything in it is still stored and can be recovered. Sometimes that takes a click, and sometimes it takes an email to us, but your campaign is not lost.
If Clear Subscription Error doesn't help

That button is only for one situation: a subscription that Stripe has already cancelled or allowed to expire. If your subscription is in a different state, the button will tell you so and direct you to support instead of making a change. This is not an error. It means the cause is something else.

If that happens, email support@chronica.ventures. Include the campaign name and roughly when the problem started. We will check the billing record directly and fix it.

Do not delete the campaign to solve a billing problem. Deleting permanently destroys the campaign's data, and it does not fix a payment issue. Changing to the Peasant tier does what you need and keeps your data.
3.0 Subscriptions & Payments