I haven't used this particular camera, but the click is a purely mechanical one that is made when the lens slots into place. The battery has nothing to do with this. Can you turn the lens back and remove it without pressing the release button? If that is the case it's not securely in place and you'll have to see what's obstructing the mechanism. Even if it does, I'd have a close look at it just to be sure.

Pretty sure not all of those screws need to be removed from the top, but there doesn't seem to be any harm either. I also don't think the RTC power needed to be disconnected?

Is there a trick to getting those antenna cables back in? They were the most annoying part of reassembly by far.

Ran into this while trying to clean an old RM U204. To anyone else looking to clean a 23 year old stereo receiver remote: the latch at the bottom doesn't work quite the same. The loop is connected to the bottom plastic instead, but starting there also got me to the finish line.

There are four latches on each side, requiring you to pull the top cover outwards. You will not open it without breaking some of them, and plastic prying tools will break against this rock. The plastic is soft, and your screwdriver will very easily damage it.

To Sony: why.

As repairs with adhesives go this is almost as easy as it gets. Two remarks:

The instructions say to remove the chin plate first, and later warn that you’ll need some glue or double-sided tape to put it back. Witrigs’ adhesive package does not include a strip for this, and I don’t think anyone sells one. I suspect it is possible to remove the back plate without removing the chin plate first.

Relatedly, the chin plate may deform pretty badly when you try to pry it off while the glue isn’t soft enough yet. Be patient with the heat gun and twice as patient with the hair dryer.

Worked! I very much recommend watching the video as well as read the manual to get a complete picture. My total time spent was multiple hours, but largely because it's the first time I'm doing a repair that involves so much glue. Gained a few gray hairs there.

Two stumbles:

I missed the line "The load Speaker has some adhesive holding it to the chassis so a little heat on the front will help.", which cost me a lot of time and worry as I was trying to force the speaker assembly out. Eventually got it out, and it's fine. Ribbon cables will be the death of me some day.

I did not keep the little bit of tape on the display ribbon safe and clean and ended up not using it at all. The written manual doesn't show its reuse, the video does.

Also: getting (almost) all of the glue goop off the back was a tragedy.