I think I found a cylindrical joint/mate bug (since I haven't found someone that can explain this behavior).
There are two cylindrical mates among the three 5-way connectors. One between the left and center connector, and one between the right and center connector. When a third mate is added between the left and right connectors, Inventor says adding the mate causes a conflict or it locks the assembly components as shown in the second picture.
I hope this is just me doing something wrong. But after asking several people, I suspect that it might be a bug. Is anyone able to recreate this problem?
I've also posted about this on the Fusion 360 support forum: https://forums.autodesk.com/t5/support/possible-cylindrical-joint-bug/td-p/7047834
Solved! Go to Solution.