You'll never believe this. I smacked the camera a couple of times, and guess what happened? Nothing! The E:61:10 problem still exists. I have to manually go into the menu and adjust the focus settings every time I turn on the camera. I have my doubts about knocking a $400 device against the wall a year after I bought it. It should work on its own. I should have purchased a cannon, panasonic or even a no-name brand. This piece of crap was a waste...

INCREDIBLE!! Had the E:61:10 error message out of the blue this AM. Manual says that this means "a camera malfunction that you cannot reverse has occurred." Found this forum with Google search. Dubiously, but firmly smacked the lens barrel against the palm of my hand twice...and voila! It works perfectly...and NO harm done. This makes my day :-) -- DrNevus

i have a DCR-PC109 ani it got the error after i dropped it accidentaly on friday, i didnt know what to do but to take it to a repair shop, i used the "drop it again" method listed here, and it worked, even though it did hurt me to drop it at first, i am happy because it works now, thanks!!!!

Hey guys, the smacking, banging, and whacking isn«t doing me any good at all. If someone could please identify the ¬barrel¬of my DSC-T1 (camera from the commercial with Steven Tyler...) I would really appreciate it, or if anyone is like me and had no success at first but then found it later on any advice would be helpul. I had this problem before and the smacking was ok, but then the camera wouldn«t turn on. I took it to a Sony repair shop and he fixed the turning-on problem but was charging me 263Û for a new lens. I took the camera and didn«t have to pay for whatever the apagar problem was (he was talking in Spanish and I didn«t really catch everything) but now the smacking solution is not working. Please help if you can! I«m in Europe for two months with no camera :(

smacking it on the side...a few good wacks!!!!! damn it works

Well, it still works, even on a DSC-F717. Smacked it twice on the side of the lens barrel and viola! Fortunately the only picture I missed was my 9 month old daughter kissing her image in a mirror.

OMG It really does work!!! My little girl chucked ours on the floor, the dreaded error message came up & the zoom and focus went. Searched the web and came across this thread, have to admit to being very sceptical but how thrilled was I when after 2 firm smacks it worked perfectly again :-) Thanks so much for this thread, its saved me lots of £s!!!

I got a DSC-P52 that was flashing E:61:10 from a friend of mine. I tried 2 smacks fix and it didn't do it. I smacked it few times pretty hard and still no success. I eneded up tacking it apart. I took off lens assembly, and there are two motors on the bottom of it. One is for zoom and another for focus. I took zoom one of and noticed that zoom plastic guide was cracked. Obviosly smack fix was useless in this case.

Ignore my previous post. Thought I didnt have anything to lose as I wasnt gonna send it to sony. Bypassed the whack and progressed to the punch. Knuckles hurt but dvcam is now back in action...wooohooo :) Thanks whackman :)

I have a DCR-IP1E that has started to show the dreaded E:61:10!! Unfortunately the "two whack" method has so far not produced any sucess :( any one know any other handy hints, as there is nothing else helpful on the WWW ! HELP !!! :(