It says "replace batteries" or "PLEASE REPLACE THE BATTERIES" or "low battery" all the time. Then you put in new FULLY CHECKED batteries and it keeps saying that the batteries need to be replaced.

There's no firmware update I can find but I see people complaining about this problem.

The real problem is that Panasonic wants to sell you their overpriced "Oxyride" batteries. And the camera's electronics are set to use those batteries for the most part, even though it may say in the manual that it can use normal alkaline batteries.

The camera even senses what type of battery it is at power up "alkaline" and so it knows what is going on. I REALLY HATE THIS!

After checking that the metal terminals in the camera are clean, or clean them with a pencil eraser.

When you power it up, always choose the picture view mode first, meaning view your last picture. After it powers up and looks good you can then switch to a camera mode and take pictures.

One other thing you can try it to turn off the flash feature completely. I always leave mine off because it really eats batteries like crazy. Keep a good stock of batteries around and when the camera is done with them they still work great in other things!

This is of course just to get by till you can trash the thing and get a newer model, if those don't eat batteries that is. Take some batteries to the store and test a new camera with them.

Hope this helped.