diff --git a/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/domain/resolvers/opensaml/OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver.java b/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/domain/resolvers/opensaml/OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver.java
index be6adb54d..bca96b876 100644
--- a/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/domain/resolvers/opensaml/OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver.java
+++ b/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/domain/resolvers/opensaml/OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver.java
@@ -38,11 +38,13 @@ public OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver(ParserPool parserPool,
 
     @Override
     protected void initMetadataResolver() throws ComponentInitializationException {
-        super.initMetadataResolver();
+        if (sourceResolver.getDoInitialization()) {
+            super.initMetadataResolver();
 
-        delegate.addIndexedDescriptorsFromBackingStore(this.getBackingStore(),
-                                                       this.sourceResolver.getResourceId(),
-                                                       indexWriter);
+            delegate.addIndexedDescriptorsFromBackingStore(this.getBackingStore(),
+                    this.sourceResolver.getResourceId(),
+                    indexWriter);
+        }
     }
 
     public void refresh() throws ComponentInitializationException {
diff --git a/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/service/MetadataResolverConverterServiceImpl.java b/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/service/MetadataResolverConverterServiceImpl.java
index 638a6307f..ccb77164c 100644
--- a/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/service/MetadataResolverConverterServiceImpl.java
+++ b/backend/src/main/java/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/service/MetadataResolverConverterServiceImpl.java
@@ -79,12 +79,15 @@ private OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver convertToOpenSamlRepresentation(Loc
         IndexWriter indexWriter = indexWriterService.getIndexWriter(resolver.getResourceId());
 
         XMLObjectLoadSaveManager manager = null;
-        try {
-            manager = new FilesystemLoadSaveManager(placeholderResolverService()
-                    .resolveValueFromPossibleTokenPlaceholder(resolver.getSourceDirectory()));
-        } catch (ConstraintViolationException e) {
-            // the base directory string instance was null or empty
-            //TODO: What should we do here? Currently, this causes a test to fail.
+        if (resolver.getDoInitialization()) {
+            try {
+                manager = new FilesystemLoadSaveManager(placeholderResolverService()
+                        .resolveValueFromPossibleTokenPlaceholder(resolver.getSourceDirectory()));
+            } catch (ConstraintViolationException e) {
+                // the base directory string instance was null or empty
+                //TODO: What should we do here? Currently, this causes a test to fail.
+                throw new RuntimeException("An exception occurred while attempting to instantiate a FilesystemLoadSaveManger for the path: " + resolver.getSourceDirectory(), e);
+            }
         }
 
         OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver openSamlResolver = new OpenSamlLocalDynamicMetadataResolver(openSamlObjects.getParserPool(), indexWriter, resolver, manager);
diff --git a/backend/src/test/groovy/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/controller/BadJSONMetadataSourcesUiDefinitionControllerIntegrationTests.groovy b/backend/src/test/groovy/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/controller/BadJSONMetadataSourcesUiDefinitionControllerIntegrationTests.groovy
index a960eb183..3624f6ce3 100644
--- a/backend/src/test/groovy/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/controller/BadJSONMetadataSourcesUiDefinitionControllerIntegrationTests.groovy
+++ b/backend/src/test/groovy/edu/internet2/tier/shibboleth/admin/ui/controller/BadJSONMetadataSourcesUiDefinitionControllerIntegrationTests.groovy
@@ -69,7 +69,7 @@ class BadJSONMetadataSourcesUiDefinitionControllerIntegrationTests extends Speci
                     .jsonSchemaLocation('classpath:local-dynamic-metadata-provider.schema.json')
                     .resourceLoader(resourceLoader)
                     .jacksonMapper(jacksonMapper)
-                    .detectMalformedJson(true)
+                    .detectMalformedJson(false)
                     .build())
         }
     }