Click the Analyze menu > Lock Model command or the Lock/Unlock Model button, , to toggle the model between locked and unlocked. When the model is locked, no change(s) that affect the analysis results can be made until the model is unlocked.
Exception: While the model is locked, one or more nonlinear static analyses can be run.
When an analysis is run, ETABS automatically locks the model to prevent changes to the model that would invalidated the analysis results. To make changes to the model after an analysis has been run, first unlock it. Unlocking the model deletes all of the analysis results. The results are deleted because after the model has been changed, the results are no longer valid.
To save analysis results and make changes to the model, (a) run the analysis, (b) use the File menu > Save As command to save the file with a new name, and (c) then make changes to the file with the new name. The original file retains the original model and the associated results.
See also