What brand cane do you have? Ambutech has the conical joints, and they are actually designed to lock as you use them. To unlock, hold your cane at a 45 degree angle (pretty much how you would normally use it), raise the tip and give it a decent whack down (not so hard you snap off the tip... that happened to a client of mine). That should shake the joint free after that.

If the tip is more cylindrical and long (say, about 2 inches), then that type does have a nasty habit of sticking, and WD40 is probably your best bet. Or get a new cane as well.

WD 40

Hi. What type of material is your cane made of? In my own experience, aluminum canes tend to be hard to pull apart when they are new. After my ONM instructor switched me to what I believe to be canes made out of graphite, this issue stopped happening.

Use plane unflavored chap stick or vaseline to oil up your joints. Only a little. Worked for me

The metal ones jam, it is a nightmare. If I calculated how much of a day I spend folding and unfolding the damn thing I would probably be very depressed so I would not tolerate that at all. Get one that doesn't!

I personally own a graphite cane. I found that it is significantly more easy to collapse then canes made of other materials like aluminum, and I very rarely have problems folding it. Nothing a little light pounding won’t fix. I also personally found lubricating the joints pretty messy and haven’t use that method for a long time.

Kinda sounds like you might need a new cane. Do you know what material it’s made of? Are there any dents in the joints? If you can’t fold it, put the tip between your feet and rest the handle by your shoulder; that frees up space and nobody will grab it by mistake (it only took someone grabbing my long white cane because they thought it was a bus pole and now I always tuck it in by my shoulder haha).