My Android phone started locking up upon boot during the initialization done by the Swapper app. My phone – a Samsung Mesmerize a/k/a Samsung Fascinate – is running cyanogenmod 7 and a shameful number (150+) of apps. I actually reduced the number of apps from its previous high of 300+ (“There’s an App for that! And I have it right here!”)
A Google search and I found a description of how to enter Safe Mode on the Samsung Fascinate.
I also found details on why using swap on Android doesn’t make sense, as well as discussion on the cyanogenmod wiki about why swap is not necessary.
Armed with this information, I booted my Samsung Mesmerize into Safe Mode. This is done by pressing the Menu button when the Samsung display appears (or is it the cyanogenmod logo?). When the system recognizes Safe Mode, it will buzz several times, then continue normally. However, the display will have “Safe Mode” in the lower left hand corner.
Having booted into Safe Mode, I went into Settings > Applications > Manage Applications… and removed Swapper from the device. I then rebooted, and started in normal mode. Fortunately for me, Swapper was indeed the culprit (if it hadn’t thrown up a dialog box, I would have been stumped!).
Now without swap, the device seems to almost be more responsive – perhaps swap was not such a good idea after all.
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