Lock (and select) not working with clipping masks

Having reent trouple with illustrator. When I lock some layers and ettempt to select a layer on the art board either i can't select the object or i select the clipping mask and other objects. I am using on Windows,  wacom tablet and all updates have been run.

as you can see i was able to select all the layers (even the locked ones) and distort.

you can see select an unlock is off  (altough it does the same thing with it on)

and if i select in the layer palette it works as expected 

this is a sample file...in a file with huindreds of layers this is making it impossible to work. Please help.