This usually happens because the nut holding hand releasing lever in place becomes loose, so the lever becomes disengaged.
You need to release three latches, the one in the center that holds the top down and the two on the sides that hold the top cover down.
There's a hole in the center rear of the trunk where you can reach the center latch. Put your finger through the hole and you can feel the bottom of the latch just above the hole. You need to move it to the right. Sometimes you can do this with your finger. This is probably easier to do if you have somebody push down on the rear of the top (the bow) to release the spring tension.
When the center latch is released, raise the bow to the vertical and click it into place. Now you can get to the side latches holding down the cover from above. Releasing these side latches is like releasing the center latch. You have to get a finger or a screwdriver underneath and push the bottom part of the latch back (toward the rear of the car).
The first thing to do when you have everything open is to fix the problem so it won't happen again. As I said, usually it is the nut that holds on the hand release lever, because it didn't have a lock washer. Make sure it has a lock washer this time.
The hardest part about dong this is that you can't see the mechanism inside when you're trying to release the latches. None of the manuals I know of have any pictures, either. I'm going to take some pictures over the few days and post them, because this is a fairly common problem.
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