Dragging materials to gameObjects

Why is it that sometimes when I try and drag and drop a material onto a game object the cursor displays a no entry symbol, i.e. it’s not possible.

For example I have created a simple gameObject (e.g. cube) but unable to drag and drop a material from my assets onto it…is the existing Default-Diffuse shader interfering with it or something?

The documentation says it’s possible to apply a material to a game object by dragging and dropping it onto the object in the scene or hierarchy views.

Sorry if this seems like such a basic question but it has been annoying me for a while now

So I think I have found the answer to my question.

I think was because my game object were on the default layer which is locked. I have tested on a new unlocked layer or also by unlocking the default layer and dragging and dropping a material works fine.

I don’t know why it would do that, but you can always expand Materials list on MeshRenderer in the Inspector and drop your material there. I find this safer than dropping materials or especially texture on objects (because the later creates new materials…).