Please explain lock symbols on doom track!

By 2manygamez, in Elder Sign: Omens

I'm trying to enjoy the game on my iPad and I'm being foiled by the locking of glyphs on the doom track. I can't figure out what causes this. For example, I got into a game and for some reason, three of the green glyph "dots" will have lock symbols in them for the entire turn. I don't know what causes this condition.

In this case, they all looked clear at the beginning of the next turn, but then when I try to start an encounter, just by entering the encounter, three of the glyphs get locked again for every investigator for the entire turn. This, of course, makes it nearly impossible to prevail.

The game I started afterwards this locking happened on the very first turn! I looked into the very first encounter with the very first investigator only to find that one glyph was already locked.

I have been through the tutorials and any FAQs I could find and I have not seen any information about what causes this to happen (so I can avoid it!) and if it's possible to remove them without losing an entire day.

Thanks for your help! I really would like to experience the fun everyone is talking about.

Figured it out. Closing gates like a pro now.

Happy gaming everyone.