I like the small Vixia cams for hiding around live events and letting them roll. At a shoot tonight I got the camera into place and hit the power button and the whole thing started groaning/vibrating. The LCD turned on, and I later noticed the automatic lens covers are stuck open.

I tried taking out the battery and replacing it as well as running on AC power. It still charges (normal blinking for charging). The LCD comes on, but is blank. It won't go into viewing mode. The lens elements rattle when it's turned off as they always did. Once it's turned on it will not turn off with the power button. I have to pull the battery.

Any ideas? Is there a way to do a "hard reset" on this camera? I didn't see anything in the manual. Some cameras will let you hold down a couple buttons when pressing power and it will reboot everything.

The thing is long long out of warranty and I could probably buy an equivalent camera for the price of sending it to Canon for repair.

Well, I thought there was nothing to lose so I shook the camera violently.

It now turns on and the automatic lens covers open and shut.

My next step was to disassemble it myself. I'm glad I avoided that.