Tracks suddenly have Free Warp markers everywhere

Today I noticed that a lot of tracks in my project suddenly had Free Warp markers over the entire track on every beat.
I have no clue as to how and when this happened, but of course it led to a lot of issues with playback (general lag, overload of the cache, …).

Has anyone noticed this before? (I have attached a screenshot)

Did I maybe hit a shortcut by accident, when I had those tracks selected?

My environment:
Version: Cubase 8.5 Pro (8.5.0 (64 bit) - Built on Oct 23 2015)
Interface-language: German
Plug-ins: None. Only the default plug-ins that came with the Cubase installation.
OS: Windows 10 Prof. 64bit German

I created the original project with Cubase 8, and created new saves of the project every now and then, until I migrated to Cubase 8.5 and continued working with that same project.

Disengage ‘musical mode’ by clicking the note symbol in sample editor (it’s orange on your screenshot). For multiple files it’s easier to do it in the pool.

Hello thanks for your reply.

Yes, I figured that. But still it’s a miracle how the free-warp slices in almost ALL tracks (around 50) could emerge in the first place.

I have no explanation. Does it happen in all your projects?

No it happened only once.

I suspect it has to do with the upgrade from Cubase 8 to Cubase 8.5, because originally I created the project with Cubase 8. But apart from that I have no clue.
I removed the free warp edits manually. But I’ve created a backup and I could upload the affected project-file here, if that helps identifying the issue?

I just wouldn’t care much if it doesn’t happen again. Maybe a transition glitch from 8 to 8.5, yes…