Thank you! I just tried the shaking it/hitting it, and dropping it on the floor solution. WOW I am amazed it worked. LOL. ROFL. I was contemplating buying a new one...I may still cuz the model I have is bulky from like years ago very inconvenient and somewhat embarrassing to use. Haha. Anyway, I will shake it and hit it again if it happens again. Thanks you smart people.

OMG spanking the camera is GREAT! Worked like a charm, thank you SOOO much for immediately giving us back our camera with no $$$ or buttache spent! Camera PC1000 NTSD

Unbelieveable!! It works!!! I shaked my DCR-TRV230 after this same Error message you guys got... I applied both shaking and smooth-hiting... and PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

I've had the problem for a couple of months and at first I was able to correct it by removing and then replacing the battery. Then this fix no longer worked. Thanks to your posts, three moderate smacks to the bottom got it workign today. Time to transfer EVERY tape I have and save my money for a new one--not a Sony this time.

having not used my sony dcr-tvr120e for over 12 months the error message c:31:40 appeared and i spent the weekend following the handbook guidelines with no success. i read the reply of hitting the camcorder with suspicion but needing no second invite gave it a good thrashing and to my utter amazement it started to work. brilliant! thanks for the advice.

Well, I did about everything you folks told me to do and it's still not working. Some Luck. I used my camera this summer for vacation. Everything went fine. Until, about a week after vacation we wanted to see our video. Had an error, a different one, but with hitting it for about 5 min. it started to work. Now here I am, 4 months later, the first time I touched the camera since vacation and I get the c3140 error. And I cant seem to fix it. Well, someone above me said that it took him 2 months to get it to work. Hopefully by January I'll fix this problem. I will post back if I fixed it or not. Untill next time.......

I have a Sony DCR-TRV740 and I too got the same error C:31:40, however feeling that I really didn't have much to lose I gave this a try. Its crazy, I know, but playing Whack-A-Camcorder really does work. I really didn't even have to hit it all that much. My suggestion, as I too got the odd audio skips after "fixing" my camcorder, hit it just a bit, and try to insert a tape. No luck? Try some more. I think its the "thud" on the bottom that really seems to help. Also, just to note, mine had be sitting around for a while and I picked up and went straigt to VCR mode. Maybe there really is something with that.

I was wondering how high to drop from, how much harder to hit, and how much hair dryer air. But Eureka! it finally worked. Persistence is the key. Everything you read here is true. I thought Sony was just trying to sell new camcorders with telling customers to hit, shake and drop their camcorders. I spent 2 months of drying out, recharging batteries, shaking, hitting w/palm and the cassette fianlly just dropped in. Stay with it folks. Going to transfer my 3 tapes to DVD and consider new.

Thank you very much for explaining me the problem of c31:42... It happens to.. I've done all the shaking. Sometimes it's ok.. then it comes back.. then shake again... ok.. until now... the problem of c31:42 is keep repetiting. And now, thanks to u all... I'm found a new way (using hair dryer) It's makes me a headache.... Cos I shooting for wedding ceremony... U guys really helps me to cure... I shall go home and try the hairdryer technique...

The hairdrying and shaking trick works very well. There was probably some moisture in the camera.