A710 IS showing "Change Batteries"

I bought this from eBay recently. It was only used a few times, and had been given as a gift. It's like new, but the batteries I took out of my Canon A540 would not work in it, and showed the "Change Batteries" message. Even a pair of brand new Panasonic Alkaline Plus batteries with an expiration date of 2014 wouldn't work - showed the same message.

Is this camera defective?

I don't see any mention in the manual of a back-up button cell battery, which these cameras often have. In my SX1 it's a small drawer next to the AA cells. It's possible that there's a rechargeable one that's just run completely flat, in which case leaving the AA cells in there but with the camera turned off for at least several hours will let it recover, or that the battery contacts aren't making good contact with the batteries themselves. If the latter is from corrosion, cleaning them with a pencil eraser might restore contact. If they're just bent, then depending on where they're bent you might be able to "un-bend" them.

Thanks.

It seems to be working again, possibly because I left batteries in it for a while. I wouldn't be surprised if it's OK now. I took some pics and the Change Batteries message did not come up.

Yeah. If it had been sitting around unused with no, or dead, batteries in it, the back-up could easily have lost charge; once it got recharged, everything got happy again.

My A720IS is starting to do this, but it's far from new. Fixes itself by just turning it off/on. I had decided that it was just showing its age, but the explanation in this thread makes a lot of sense to me.

Jon wrote in post #10427049
Yeah. If it had been sitting around unused with no, or dead, batteries in it, the back-up could easily have lost charge; once it got recharged, everything got happy again.

I'm sure glad I stopped by this section to ask, and glad I didn't sell it as a defective camera and taken a loss on it.

Thanks again.