What edit actions on beams turns off the automatic direction/stem length adjustment

Not sure how to ask the question but it appears that if I have some beamed notes, anything I do manually to move the beam or flip it in a direction that is not automatically selected turns off any subsequent automation, such that if I copy/paste that set of notes and then edit the notes in the copy, they do not flip and the stem lengths may be truncated, or the notes get pushed against the beam. Looks like the beam is fixed in the position selected manually. So what actions, turn of automatic adjustments, and if they are turned off, how does one reset the beam to its default actions.