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Known Participant
May 19, 2021
Question

Locked Layers Keep Moving

  • May 19, 2021
  • 4 replies
  • 4851 views

Illustrator 2021, MacOS, Catalina ....


I have a solid color background layer with about 100+ groups of fine lines in front of it. While trying to adjust the position of the layer above the bg, sometimes I will accidentally select the bg layer... so, I did the logical thing and LOCKED that layer. Fixed! Nope... it still moves. It's only "locked" if you actually select it from the layer panel - then it it's all "Sorry, we can't touch this layer - we only move this layer when you DON'T want it moved -Annoyingly yours, Adobe"


If a layer can still move with a lock on it, what's the point? A locked layer should NEVER move - there's a reason people chose to use them and it's not because they want them to move. If I wanted the layer to move, I'd unlock it. If users want it to do something illogical, like moving while locked, they need to opt-in - that should never be default behavior.

4 replies

Participant
April 27, 2023

YES!!! WTF ADOBE!?!?

 

Participant
July 5, 2024

YES! Adobe please fix this! 

Anubhav M
Community Manager
Community Manager
July 26, 2024

Hello @ALSON38445539cyd4,

We understand that encountering technical issues can be frustrating. Would you mind sharing some more details, like the exact version of the OS/Illustrator and screenshots / a screen recording of your workflow showing the layers panel and the problem (https://adobe.ly/3YlKnYK), so we can investigate this further?


Looking forward to hearing from you.

 

Thanks,

Anubhav

mattrock1
Participating Frequently
June 28, 2021

It seems to me this may be a bug related to an issue I've just run into...

 

If a sublayer is locked but the primary layer is not, all layers can be selected and transformed (etc).  The only way I can find around this is to move the layers I need locked to their own layer, which defeats the purpose of locking sublayers.

 

Help! 😞

 

Illustrator 25.3.1

Big Sur 11.4

mattrock1
Participating Frequently
June 28, 2021

Edit: So it appears the issue is actually Objects within a Group which will not lock (though marked as such) whereas Ungrouped Objects do remain locked. Very confusing, and I suspect this is a bug. Or am I not understanding the point of locking objects in a group?

Mike_Gondek10189183
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 19, 2021

How come your path is not in a layer but outdented and by itself. should look like this.

 

 

Met1
Legend
May 20, 2021

He's cropped out all the layers above...

Kurt Gold
Community Expert
Community Expert
May 19, 2021

In the past there had been quite a lot of discussions about that point at issue. It often turned out that there are many arguments to allow that behaviour in nested contructions and many arguments to disallow it at the same time.

 

I always tended to say that it is often pretty useful to have the ability to move locked sub items in nested layer or group constructions, but I do understand that it may be not desired in many cases as well.

 

A setting in the Illustrator preferences (absolute lock versus relative lock) would be welcome, but it is not there at the moment.

 

Known Participant
March 6, 2025

Then whats the point of locking objects?

Srishti Bali
Community Manager
Community Manager
March 18, 2025

Hi @TrimMark

 

I understand how frustrating this issue can be. We want to assist you better, but we’ll need more details. We tried replicating the issue on our end but couldn’t reproduce it. If possible, please check if the problem persists on the latest version, 29.3.1. If you're still experiencing the same issue, sharing a screen recording, as Anshul mentioned, would be really helpful.  We're here to support you!

 

Regards,

Srishti