Sometimes you will see an article which tells you that the item cannot be edited with an error telling you:
“Check-out failed with the following error: The user checking out does not match the user who checked out the item. You are not permitted to use that link to directly access that page", or similar.
These items will display a padlock icon next to the title to the affected item, like this:
6.17.1 What the padlock icon means
Generally, when a user opens an article to edit it, the system locks the article in order to prevent other users from editing the same article at the same time.
This functionality guarantees no-one can overwrite somebody else’s simultaneous edits. The padlock tells you someone else might be editing the item you want to work on.
This can also happen (item can be locked) when someone gets timed out of an editing session or used the back button or simply closed the browser instead of the Save & Close or Close button.
As such an item will remain locked if you don’t exit/close the item properly (see below for what this means) once you are finished editing. This is by far the most common cause for locked items.
Fortunately this is a very easy problem to fix.
6.17.2 How to unlock a locked item
First do not worry, because you are an administrator you can unlock all those items one by one or all of them in one go.
If you want to unlock only one item, simply click on the padlock to unlock the item.
If there are many locked items, select the items with the tick box next to each and click the Check In button from the Toolbar; this works with one or multiple items selected.
6.17.3 Closing Article Edits Correctly to prevent Locking
What do we mean by ‘closing an item correctly’?
When you finish editing the article, it’s your job to tell the website "I’m finished now, you can let someone else modify this item now if they need to!"
If you don’t let the website know you’re done, it assumes you’re still actively modifying the article and blocks anyone else from editing it, even if you have disappeared for a coffee!
Here are a few common scenarios that leave an item unnecessarily locked even after editing is complete:
- The editor simply closed the browser tab
- The editor hit the back button on the browser
- The editor went to a different tab without clicking ‘close’
- The editor went for a coffee break and the session timed out
- The editor closed the browser altogether
What are the proper ways to close an item?
To tell the website that you’re finished editing and to allow others to edit an article, there are two correct ways to exit the article:
- Click on the Save & Close button
- Click on Save and then the Close button