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yolatechno

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Jun 13, 2011
21
0
Hey all,

A while ago I was using a Broadband Dongle. Today I tried to delete the application from my hard drive, but when it came to emptying the trash I was told "Mac_swapperdemon is in use".

I did some research on it and it turns out this is a file connected with dongles, which slows down macs considerably (I definitely noticed this).

My problem is that the file won't allow me to delete it. I've done a file search with EasyFind, but it hasn't located it at all. I've gone into System Preferences => Accounts => login items to see if there was something in there, but there wasn't (except for Airport Base station Agent).

I'm not sure what else to try. Any suggestions?
 

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
My problem is that the file won't allow me to delete it. I've done a file search with EasyFind, but it hasn't located it at all. I've gone into System Preferences => Accounts => login items to see if there was something in there, but there wasn't (except for Airport Base station Agent).
Launch Activity Monitor and Force Quit it from there. Be sure to change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes". After you Force Quit it, you should be able to delete it.

The only effective method for complete app removal is manual deletion:
 

sca

macrumors newbie
Jan 17, 2012
1
0
hi there...
I would like to avoid that Mac_SwapperDemon will not be launched, but:
1) i can not kill since every time i kill it restart again
2) i can not identify the file associated to it.

can some one help me?
thnaks
 

GGJstudios

macrumors Westmere
May 16, 2008
44,545
943
hi there...
I would like to avoid that Mac_SwapperDemon will not be launched, but:
1) i can not kill since every time i kill it restart again
2) i can not identify the file associated to it.

can some one help me?
thnaks

  1. Remove anything related to Mac_SwapperDemon from System Preferences > Accounts > select user > Login Items
    For Lion users: System Preferences > Users & Groups > yourusername > Login Items

  2. Remove anything related to Mac_SwapperDemon from /Library/LaunchAgents/ and ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
    (to reach these folders which are hidden in Lion, open Finder and click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path)

  3. Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then locate and quit or force quit any process related to Mac_SwapperDemon.

  4. Follow the instructions in my first post to completely remove Mac_SwapperDemon from your computer.
 

Sanbisenti

macrumors newbie
May 9, 2012
1
0
Hello! Thanks for the help. Just to clarify, I cannot find LaunchAgents in finder.. (I still run tiger). Anything I should do differently? Thanks

  1. Remove anything related to Mac_SwapperDemon from /Library/LaunchAgents/ and ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
    (to reach these folders which are hidden in Lion, open Finder and click Go > Go to Folder > then enter the path)

  2. Launch Activity Monitor and change "My Processes" at the top to "All Processes", then locate and quit or force quit any process related to Mac_SwapperDemon.

  3. Follow the instructions in my first post to completely remove Mac_SwapperDemon from your computer.
 

Comique

macrumors newbie
Feb 14, 2013
1
0
Hi,
I had the same issue. After I enabled parental controls, I started getting a message saying Mac_SwapperDemon is not authorized. On denying authorization, it continually turned up once every 5 seconds. I thought this was serious because something seemed to be happening every 5 seconds in my system that I had no clue about.

After googling a bit, I found that most of the issues were related to USB Keys. Most of these are manufactured by Huawei and branded by manufacturers like Vodafone, etc.

I managed to solve it after a couple of hours of frustration. Here is what I did.

1-- I followed the advice from the following link:
http://tumblr.mloughran.com/post/173997552/removing-vodafone-malware-that-spoils-the-snow-leopard

I went a bit further though.
I did
cd /System/Library/Extensions
and then:
rm -fr *Hua*
rm -fr ZTE*

I was safe doing this only because i no longer use any of those USB dongles. If you are using one, this would not be a good idea.

This was not enough though. I restarted and the message kept popping up

2. Next step.
cd /Library/LaunchAgents
i found a file called Swapper.plist here. I did not want to destroy the file since I wanted to see what was really going on. So i just renamed it
sudo mv Swapper.plist Swapper.plist1

I opened the file using vi and found the location of the Mac_SwapperDemon.app.

3. Last step.
cd /Library/Application Support/Join Air
To the best of my knowledge, this will be the same on all machines.
Here, you'll find Mac_SwapperDemon.app.
Again, I just renamed it so that I could tinker around with it
sudo mv Mac_SwapperDemon.app Mac_SwapperDemon.app1


And that was it!! those messages stopped.
Hope this helps. Again, please watch out before you execute the commands I've given you. the ones with rm -rf effectively removes all directories under a particular folder without even telling you about them or their contents. So please be careful and don't use them if you don't know what they do.

cheers,
C
 
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