Question

I have log4net implemented in a Visual Studio 2010 VB.NET Windows service. It used to work, but not anymore.

I have a sub RunTasks that gets started by the service every minute.
When I debug this procedure using a console project in the same solution, the logging works. However when I install the service and run it, and debug it using VS by attaching to the process, I found out that IsInfoEnabled, IsDebugEnabled, IsErrorEnabled etc. are all set to false, and I guess that’s why the logging is not working, although RunTasks is executed by the service.

I have the following class, if I understand things right the XMLConfigurator is started before GetLogger.

Imports System.Reflection

<Assembly: log4net.Config.XMLConfigurator(ConfigFile:="LogConfig.xml", Watch:=True)> 

Public NotInheritable Class Logging

    Private Shared _LogName As String
    Private Shared _ilog As log4net.ILog

    Private Sub New()
    End Sub

    Public Shared ReadOnly Property ILog() As log4net.ILog
        Get
            If _ilog Is Nothing Then
                _ilog = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger(LogName)
            End If

            Return _ilog
        End Get
    End Property

    Private Shared ReadOnly Property LogName() As String
        Get
            If _LogName = "" Then

                'If GetType(MySettings).GetProperty("LogName") IsNot Nothing Then
                '    _LogName = GetType(MySettings).GetProperty("LogName").GetValue(MySettings.Default, Nothing)
                'End If
                If _LogName = "" Then _LogName = "DefaultLogger"
            End If

            Return _LogName
        End Get
    End Property

End Class

The logging itself looks like this:

ILog.Info("Starting RunTasks ... ")

And here is my LogConfig.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <log4net>
    <appender name="textfileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
      <file value="myLogFile.log" />
      <appendToFile value="true" />
      <rollingStyle value="Size" />
      <maxSizeRollBackups value="3" />
      <maximumFileSize value="100KB" />
      <staticLogFileName value="true" />
      <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
        <conversionPattern value="%date{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss} %-5level - %message%newline" />
      </layout>
    </appender>
    <logger name="DefaultLogger">
      <level value="ALL" />
      <appender-ref ref="textfileAppender" />
    </logger>
  </log4net>
</configuration>

Answer 1

I found the answer myself, I had to move the following line of code:

<Assembly: log4net.Config.XMLConfigurator(ConfigFile:="LogConfig.xml", Watch:=True)> 

… (see first code block above) to the AssemblyInfo.vb of the solutions startup project. XMLConfigurator has to be executed before GetLogger is.