Compile Error: Unexpected token '<EOF>'. at line 29 column 1 - when trying to comment out code

Question

I'm an administrator not very familiar with code; I have been trying to deactivate a legacy apex trigger that predates me joining my company but it is causing some system issues. An option brought to my attention is to comment out the code and then push. I'm attempting to do this but am receiving the following error:

Compile Error: Unexpected token ''. at line 29 column 1

Does anyone have any insights? Here's my code below :

/* trigger AccountTrigger on Account (
    before insert, 
    before update, 
    before delete, 
    after insert, 
    after update, 
    after delete, 
    after undelete) {
    AccountTriggerHandler handler = new AccountTriggerHandler();
        if (Trigger.isBefore) {
            //call your handler.before method
            if(Trigger.isUpdate)
            {
                handler.isBeforeUpdate(Trigger.newMap, Trigger.oldMap);
            }
        
        } else if (Trigger.isAfter) {
            //call handler.after method
            if(Trigger.isInsert)
            {
                handler.isAfterInsert(Trigger.newMap);
            }
            else if(Trigger.isUpdate)
            {
                handler.isAfterUpdate(Trigger.newMap, Trigger.oldMap);
            }
        }
} */

Answer 1

You can't comment out the whole file and leave it empty, you'd comment out the body and leave the class header

trigger AccountTrigger on Account (before Insert){
    /*
       whatever code exists
    */
}

However, there's an option to deactivate the trigger instead of updating the contents of the trigger. There's an Is Active checkbox just above the code editor when editing a trigger in the org. Afterwards, you can deploy that trigger into production to deactivate it (and eventually delete it).