Orange Flashing and Lose All Control of Camera

Camera in question = Canon PowerShot SD880 IS

I Google-searched this to no useful avail --- I don't think Google is nearly so useful as it once was.

Just sitting here at the desk, I have been playing around, trying to better learn various things about this camera and check out various CHDK settings.
This happened twice within fifteen minutes; I press the shutter-button half-way; the little picture of a camera (bottom left of screen) starts winking; then all of a sudden an orange light starts constantly flashing, the screen goes grey, and I lose all control of the camera, no response to any button I press.
I believe it would have kept this up until the battery went dead.
During this, the lens remained extended.
Nothing else was working, so I opened the battery door, at which point the flashing stopped and the camera turned itself off; the lens remained extended -- even after I closed the battery door.
After each of these occurrences, a press of the "Play" button and the camera instantly came back into action as if nothing had ever been amiss.

Before this took place, I had been noticing that sometimes, during normal shooting, a half-press of the shutter-button did not seem to achieve anything, or it took a very firm half-press to get any action.

The way it acts, I almost want to add half-a-drop of WD-40 around the edge of the shutter-button, but that might not be a good idea.

What could have caused this flashing orange light and complete loss of control ?

If and when it ever happens again, do I have any better option rather than opening the battery door ?

Thanks for reading and all help is appreciated.

Typically the small camera icon and orange light combined mean the camera is shaking too much to take the image. This is discussed in the manual (see
http://gdlp01.c-wss.com …80IS_IXUS870IS_​CUG_EN.pdf) about page 57.

Attempt to take a picture with the camera propped on a table or something solid (to eliminate motion) and see if the behavior is the same. If it is I would suspect you may have a weak battery (how old is it?) and it needs replacement.

John from PA wrote in post #18877486
Typically the small camera icon and orange light combined mean the camera is shaking too much to take the image.

Thanks for the link.

I am kind of leaning towards a sticky/dirty shutter-button maybe possibly causing my situation; but then, maybe that is not the problem at all.

I searched and found countless home remedies for cleaning sticky shutter-buttons on DSLR, but nary a mention about cleaning a compact.

Well..., the situation has rapidly gotten exponentially worse.
When I first posted this, after having one of these fits, I could take pictures normally for a bit before it would do it again.
Just for fun, I swapped in a fresh battery and that did not seem to help.

I half-press the button and immediately the little camera icon starts winking and the orange light starts flashing; if I then go ahead and press the button as if to take a picture, then everything goes blank except for the constant flashing orange light and maybe the featureless screen is somewhat lit up.

It now does this with every press of the shutter-button.

Switching it to video, everything seem to work fine.

Try resetting the camera to the factory defaults. How to do it is covered in the manual at the link I provided.

John from PA wrote in post #18877509
Try resetting the camera to the factory defaults. How to do it is covered in the manual at the link I provided.

I think that sort of fixed it; anyway, it seems to be back to it's normal behavior.

I had another slightly related (or maybe fully related) question, but I think it may deserve a heading of it's own, so I will ask it in a new thread.

Thanks so much for your help and idea.