SD card sliver stuck inside body

yourwildhorses77

Hello
Recently, I found that my old SD card had splintered and a piece was wedged inside the slot. While I managed to move it out of the way, I also lost the piece inside the body (I think) and now my camera is unresponsive

bruto

I don't think there's any gap in the card holder by which a piece could go deeper into the camera, so my guess is that there's either a piece still in there, or that in extracting it you might have bent a contact.

I'd get a strong flashlight and a magnifying glass or glasses like a loupe, and see if you can look down into the slot. Any slivers remaining should show. You should see nine contact pins (on the D3200 two of them are in a pair close together). They stick out evenly, and are evenly spaced, except for the one at one end. You can compare the pin spacing with the slots on the card.

If you find that a pin is bent, the rest is your choice, as to whether you take it somewhere to get it fixed, or try with something like a dental pick to straighten it out. The pins are thin but not as crazily delicate as those used in CF cards, so it's possible that a slightly bent one can be tweaked back, but it's still a risky undertaking.

I'm assuming that when you say the camera is unresponsive you mean that when you turn it on there's an error message that there's no card, or that it does not record properly. If you try to start the camera with no card and it does nothing at all, it's not a simple card problem. It should always light up at least, and if you have selected the menu item "slot empty release" to be in effect it should shoot with no card, even though it does not record the shot. If it's not at least doing that, you have a more serious problem assuming the battery isn't dead.