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Problems with Alibre software caused by Grammarly

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
We've now had at least a couple of cases reported where users have found many dialogues in Alibre impossible to use - won't select with mouse etc.

It seems that the Grammarly app is 'checking' things on a rapid cycle and disrupts access to some UI items - this applies not just to text fields.

So - I recommend don't install Grammarly. If you have Grammarly installed and Alibre Design or Atom3D is behaving strangely, consider removing it.

If anyone has Grammarly installed without it leading to any problems with Alibre software, it would be interesting - there might be options or an install order than can work around this problem.
 

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
Not enough reports to be specific, and I don't believe we were given details of Grammarly version - this is just a heads up to make people aware of a possible issue.
 

BigKahunaFL

Member
Okay. Thanks, DavidJ. I used to use Grammarly on a regular basis but could no longer justify its expense. Times have changed and was looking at installing it again. This time the need outweighs the cost, I think. If I proceed in doing so, I'll make note of anything i notice and pass it along.
 
I'm using Grammarly, and I am having the same issue. Running the program as an administrator seems to stop the problem. I can't remember where I read the workaround.
 

danwilley

Member
I recently had a problem with mouse clicks not working on the “Replace Component” dialog for an assembly I am working on. It turns out that Grammarly was the culprit, as described in this thread.

Back story: My old Intel I5 (gen 1) system running Windows 10 finally died. That said, I ran Grammarly and Alibre together on that old system with no ill effects that I knew of. I ran Grammarly and Alibre for several years on many models and assemblies across several versions of Alibre. Because my old system died, I built a new Intel I9 system running Windows 11 Pro (11-27-23). After installing all my applications, including Alibre and Grammarly, one of the first Alibre tasks I tried was to replace a component (screw) in an assembly. Interacting with the Alibre explorer was OK, including selecting two components, right-clicking, and selecting “Replace Component.” The Replace Component dialog would display, but nothing could be selected with mouse clicks except to close the dialog (“X” in the upper right corner of the dialog). For example, when I clicked on the browse folder to select a replacement component, that secondary file selection dialog would not display. I could also not type anything into the file name field. If I positioned the mouse pointer on any field, that field would flicker at about 10hrz. That’s probably the sample rate of Grammarly. (?)

For several days, I tried all of the online suggestions regarding a misbehaving mouse… a new mouse driver, a different mouse, and checked the Windows “health” even though the system was a few days old, changed mouse settings, etc., to no avail. As an experiment, I turned on the Windows function that lets you emulate a mouse with the keyboard. All of that keyboard emulation worked on the Replace Component dialog, but the mouse would not work. Finally, I found this Alibre thread, which solved my problem.

Note the forum thread title does not mention a mouse problem, only Grammarly. I searched for mouse problems in the Alibre forum (over several days) but nothing popped up. I finally looked further in the Alibre thread titles and saw this mention of Grammarly.

As the earlier posts in this thread suggest and to fix the mouse-click problem, you can do one of the following:

  • Uninstall Grammarly. Permanently uninstalling Grammarly is pretty drastic if you still use it. Instead, go to the Windows Task Manager (Cntl-Shift-Esc), then to Processes, scroll down in the process named list until you see Grammarly, select Grammarly, right-click, and click End Task. Restart Alibre. Grammarly, however, will be restarted when you boot Windows again. If you don’t want to auto-restart Grammarly on a boot, just go to Startup Apps in the task manager, right-click on Grammarly, and then click Disable.
  • Start Alibre with Run As Administrative credentials. This is what I use now. Find the Alibre icon link. I have one on my desktop. Right-click the icon and click on Run As Administrator. The downside is that when you start Alibre, you will have to click on the “Do you want to allow this app to make changes on your device?” dialog. Just click Yes, and Alibre is off and running.
  • Blocking Grammarly from interacting with Alibre. Application blocking is a feature of Grammarly. Blocking an application will cause Grammarly to ignore any interaction with the app. This would be the ideal solution if it worked. The only way you can block an application is by right-clicking on the “floating” green Grammarly icon displayed next to the app you are using when entering text into a field. The problem is that Grammarly never displays that green floating icon when using Alibre, so you cannot block Alibre. It does for Word and other applications, just not Alibre. That is a Grammarly bug, in my opinion. To unblock an application, however, you go to the Grammarly console, select “blocked apps,” and then select the app you want to unblock. Why you cannot go to that same Grammarly console to add an application to block is beyond me. Grammarly should probably be told, or maybe there is something Alibre could do in their dialogs to prevent programs like Grammarly from interfering. I suspect Grammarly puts itself between the mouse and the application, so there is no way for an application to know it is being monitored.

Both Alibre and Grammarly are excellent applications. Grammarly just does not always play nice.

Dan
 

DavidJ

Administrator
Staff member
I have been advised by a user that running Alibre 'as administrator' avoids the problems with Grammarly. If you set this via compatibility options, that may avoid the 'Do you want to allow this app to make changes' challenge - but Windows isn't always consistent, so I can't be sure.
 

kritoke

Member
I have been advised by a user that running Alibre 'as administrator' avoids the problems with Grammarly. If you set this via compatibility options, that may avoid the 'Do you want to allow this app to make changes' challenge - but Windows isn't always consistent, so I can't be sure.
It probably is due to Grammarly not having same admin rights, usually you have to run an application with elevated permissions to interact with other elevated processes. I always just ended up closing Grammarly rather than fight with it when I needed to use Alibre.
 
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