Important: Sometimes, this issue can be solved by simply restarting your computer. Make sure that you do so before proceeding to the steps below.
The error message “Something went wrong” or a gray Grammarly widget is usually caused by restrictions within your network, VPN, proxy, or firewall settings.
To resolve this, you need to ensure that your network, firewall, VPN, or proxy allows access to the following internet addresses:
- *.grammarly.com (ports 80 and 443)
- *.grammarly.io (ports 80 and 443)
- *.grammarly.net (ports 80 and 443)
You or your IT administrator may need to add exception rules for the above addresses to your network, firewall, VPN, or proxy settings.
Additionally, Grammarly apps use WebSockets to communicate with our servers, with the corresponding ports of 80 and 443. Besides allowing the URLs mentioned above, you need to ensure that your network, VPN, firewall, or proxy fully supports the WebSocket protocol. You can read more about WebSocket support in this article: WebSockets Support Q&A for System Administrators.
If this doesn’t help, we recommend the following troubleshooting steps, depending on your operating system (Mac or Windows):
- Try switching off the SmartScreen for Microsoft Edge: open Windows Security, select App & Browser control > Reputation-based protection settings, and turn off SmartScreen for Microsoft Edge. This feature may be blocking the pop-up necessary for the Grammarly assistant window to function correctly:
- Reinstall Microsoft Edge WebView from the following page: Microsoft Edge Developer | Microsoft Edge WebView2. Download the Evergreen Bootstrapper version by scrolling down the page and selecting Download under Evergreen Bootstrapper. Then, run the downloaded file with administrator rights by double-clicking it and selecting Run as administrator.
- If you experience this issue specifically in Microsoft Word, it may be caused by Copilot. If you use a personal or family Microsoft Office account, please try turning that feature off: Go to File > Options > Copilot and uncheck the Enable Copilot box; select OK, and then restart Microsoft Word.
If none of the above suggestions help, please submit a support request here: Contact Support. To expedite the resolution of the issue, we recommend that you retrieve and attach the Grammarly for Windows logs and a video recorded while retrieving them.
The root cause of this issue may depend on the app where you’re using Grammarly.
If the issue occurs in Microsoft Word:
Possible root cause: Copilot is enabled in Microsoft Word. If you can turn off Copilot while using Grammarly, it should resolve the issue.
How to troubleshoot:
- If you use a family or personal Microsoft 365 subscription, check out this Microsoft Support article: How to turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscriptions.
- If your Microsoft 365 license is provided by your organization, you can reach out to your IT administrator and refer them to these articles: Manage Microsoft 365 Copilot settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center, Manage Copilot agents in Integrated Apps - Microsoft 365 admin.
Possible root cause: Track Changes mode is enabled in the document with markup and comments.
How to troubleshoot: Switch to the Original setting in the Review tab:
Possible root cause: The document contains over 200 pages.
How to troubleshoot: Try splitting the document into 100-page sections to check if the issue persists.
If the issue occurs in Microsoft Teams:
Possible root cause: The error may occur after removing an image from the text.
How to troubleshoot: Select the entire text and perform the cut-and-paste action.