My phone has frozen

[AC Question]

I switched it on and used wifi to download a few apps while there was no SD card or a sim card in it. It was working fine till then.
Next, I inserted an SD card from my previous phone just to check whether it shows or not. It did. But after I removed my SD card, the phone slowed down, didn't respond to touch. I restarted it but its just frozen. The display is black while the "recent apps" and "return" touch icons are lit up. Its not responding to anything.
The battery was sufficient, while the SD card had also been scanned for viruses.
What should I do now?

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Which phone? When you removed your SD card, did you Unmount it first in Settings>Storage?

 

[Nikkie Saraf]

It's a samsung galaxy S7 edge.
I did not Unmount it, unfortunately.
What will happen now?

 

[B. Diddy]

Removing a card without Unmounting first can potentially cause file corruption on the card itself, although this shouldn't really affect the phone. Try powering off, then booting into Recovery and wiping the cache partition: https://support.t-mobile.com/docs/DOC-25076

 

[chanchan05]

You did not turn it off? You're supposed to turn it off before attempting to remove the SIM card that comes out with the card on the tray.

 

[B. Diddy]

Wait, are we talking SD or SIM here?

 

[chanchan05]

Wait, are we talking SD or SIM here?

Would that really matter? They're on the same tray. You can't remove the SD without removing the SIM. Pulling the SIM out on a phone that's turned on wilk cause issues.

 

[anon(5719825)]

Would that really matter? They're on the same tray. You can't remove the SD without removing the SIM. Pulling the SIM out on a phone that's turned on wilk cause issues.

Not if the user unmounts the SD card before ejecting the sim tray. There is an unmount option in the storage settings just for this purpose.

 

[chanchan05]

Not if the user unmounts the SD card before ejecting the sim tray. There is an unmount option in the storage settings just for this purpose.

View attachment 228435

Whether the OP unmounted or not, it will still cause problems with the phone. The SD card may not have caused a corruption, but removal of the SIM card without turning the phone off most likely will.

 

[anon(5719825)]

Whether the OP unmounted or not, it will still cause problems with the phone. The SD card may not have caused a corruption, but removal of the SIM card without turning the phone off most likely will.

As long as the card is ejected, there will be no problems in removing the sim tray. I do it all the time to swap sim cards and SD cards. on both of my S7 Edge phones. It's possible he didn't eject the SD card which caused the freeze up but normally, ejecting that and removing the tray will not hurt anything.

 

[B. Diddy]

I've removed SIM cards before while a phone was still powered on, and didn't notice any issues. This was on a ZenFone 2. Maybe problems occur only on certain phones?

 

[chanchan05]

I've removed SIM cards before while a phone was still powered on, and didn't notice any issues. This was on a ZenFone 2. Maybe problems occur only on certain phones?

Possibly. Granted it was just a cheap China phone I did it to. Lol.

 

[meyerweb#CB]

You did not turn it off? You're supposed to turn it off before attempting to remove the SIM card that comes out with the card on the tray.

No, that's simply not true. You can dismount the SD card, remove the SIM tray, remove or swap the SD, and reinsert the tray without removing the SIM. At least on Sprint phones you can. When you remove the SIM, the phone tells you it's been removed and your functionality will be limited until you reinstall it.