[TYPO3-english] Locks? What is the concept? and why are they hurting my site?

[Morten Kjems]

Hi.

I have a really strange and serious problem.

A while ago some of my sites would not load correctly. There where no 
error message just an empty header and body tag.

I found out that this was caused by "locks" stored in the 
typo3temp/locks folder. It seems that the process that generated
them, timed out without releasing the locks.

I thought I had solved the problem by uninstalling all unnecessary 
extensions (I thought that one of the extensions where causing the 
problem).

But now a month later the problem is back. I checked the typo3temp/locks 
folder and found 54 locks meaning that 54 pages could not load and that 
80% of the site was down.

I deleted all the locks but just a few hours later I found 24 new locks. 
And during the time it has taken to write this post 18 new locks have 
appeared.

I have no idea why this happen all of a sudden. I guess that when I get 
up in the morning the entire site will be down.

Can someone explain the concept of locks?

And can anyone suggest an approach to find out what causes this behavior?

All suggestions are most welcome.