Log4Net File Appender Not Logging

Question

my FileAppender isn't working. It probably isn't a permissions thing as I'm local admin.

I've enabled internal debugging and I'm not getting any errors or exceptions from log4net.

My config file is below. Thanks

<log4net>
        <appender name="ConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ConsoleAppender" >
            <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
                <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%ndc] - %message%newline" />
            </layout>
        </appender>
        <appender name="FileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender">
            <file value="C:\log-file.txt" />
            <appendToFile value="true" />
            <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
                <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%ndc] - %message%newline" />
            </layout>
        </appender>
        <root>
            <level value="DEBUG" />
            <appender-ref ref="ConsoleAppender" />
            <appender-ref ref="FileAppender" />
        </root>
    </log4net>

The code to log is effectively:-

public class Logger
{
    private static readonly ILog defaultLog;
    static Logger()
    {
        BasicConfigurator.Configure();
        defaultLog = LogManager.GetLogger("default");
    }

    public static void Log(string errorMessage, Exception exception)
    {
        defaultLog.Error(errorMessage, exception);
    }
}

Answer 1

Based on your description I assumed, that you used the BasicConfigurator (supports only ConsoleAppender) instead of the XmlConfigurator. Switching to the XmlConfigurator should fix your problem.

Answer 2

There are 2 main options to enable logging. Refer to the Configuration manual for more details.

1. Use XmlConfigurator.Configure()
2. Add [assembly: log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator(Watch=true)] to AssemblyInfo.cs

BasicConfigurator.Configure() can only write to the console.