Disable EXM and remove connection strings

Question

I've disabled EXM (in Sitecore 9.0.1):

<setting name="EXM.Enabled" value="false" />

I've also removed the exm.master, EXM.CryptographicKey and EXM.AuthenticationKey connection strings. I'm still getting these errors in my Exm.log file:

41060 11:47:16 ERROR No connection string configuration was found by the name 'exm.master'.
41060 11:47:16 ERROR No connection string configuration was found by the name 'exm.master'.
41060 11:47:16 ERROR No connection string configuration was found by the name 'EXM.CryptographicKey'.
41060 11:47:16 ERROR Value must represent a valid hexadecimal value.
Parameter name: cryptographicKey
41060 11:47:16 ERROR No connection string configuration was found by the name 'EXM.AuthenticationKey'.
41060 11:47:16 ERROR Value must represent a valid hexadecimal value.
Parameter name: authenticationKey
41060 11:47:16 ERROR A 256 bit encryption key was expected.
41060 11:47:16 ERROR A 256 bit authentication key was expected.
41060 11:47:16 INFO  Distributed session {042BA333-EF3D-43FF-A473-3E45715738BE} is beginning.
ManagedPoolThread #2 11:49:15 ERROR Cannot update statistics as data provider is not initialized.
ManagedPoolThread #1 11:50:16 ERROR Cannot update statistics as data provider is not initialized.
ManagedPoolThread #3 11:51:16 ERROR Cannot update statistics as data provider is not initialized.

Are there further configuration steps I need to take to completely shut down EXM and not generate these log errors?

Answer 1

Instead of changing the EXM.Enabled setting, try setting the following to no in your Web.config:

<add key="exmEnabled:define" value="no" />

Answer 2

In Sitecore 9.0.2 you also need to apply patch 215205 from SitecoreSupport otherwise you will have issues such as:

ERROR Aggregation Error Exception: System.InvalidOperationException Message: Dimension could not be resolved for for dimension id: b459a0ca-9f43-4ac1-8e6d-549e2a3de674 Source: Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation    at Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation.Pipeline.SegmentProcessor.ProcessSegments(IInteractionAggregationContext context, IEnumerable`1 segments)    at Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation.Pipeline.InteractionProcessor.AggregateSegments(IInteractionAggregationContext context, AggregationScope scope)    at Sitecore.Analytics.Aggregation.Pipeline.InteractionAggregationPipelineProcessor.Process(InteractionAggregationPipelineArgs args)

Nested Exception

Exception: System.InvalidOperationException Message: Dimension could not be resolved for for dimension id: b459a0ca-9f43-4ac1-8e6d-549e2a3de674 Source: Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation    at Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation.Data.Model.AggregationSegment.get_Dimension() at Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation.Data.Model.AggregationSegment.GetData(IVisitAggregationContext context)    at Sitecore.ExperienceAnalytics.Aggregation.Pipeline.SegmentProcessor.ProcessSegments(IInteractionAggregationContext context, IEnumerable`1 segments)