Recently I had my 8mm Handycam model DCRTRV260 at a gathering when something happened to it. I'm unsure whether someone spilled a drink on it or it fell a short distance, but since then it has not recorded properly. At first, it gave me a message that said, ''Condensation in camera, turn off for 1hr'' or something similar to that. So i turned it off for the night, only to find the next morning that it was still acting up. It kept telling me to reinsert the tape when i would try to play or record.
I replaced the tape with a new one and it would now appear to record. In camera mode, the REC would appear in the corner and I could hear the tape spinning. However, it was acting strange. the counter would count as long as i was recording, but would reset when i would stop. the counter did not reset to ''00:00:00'' but instead to ''--:--:--''. Then when I would hit record again, it would start counting from 00:00:00 as it had before, and this process would repeat. when I went to VCR Mode to try to view the tape, nothing appeared. I could hit play and all that would show was the blue screen. The counter did not move at all while playing. it stayed at ''--:--:--''. Even when rewinding and fastforwarding the counter would not change, but the tape was moving, i could hear it and see the change when i took out the tape.
I have tried resetting the camera to factory settings and using a tape head cleaner, both to no avail.
If anyone has seen something similar to this and can help me out, it would be greatly appreciated. Sony wants at least $141 to fix this, and I would rather not pay that much if it is a relatively simple fix.
Thanks in advance.

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