Azure AppInsight with Log4Net - azure

Question

I have been trying to write Logs(Trace, Information & Exception) in Azure AppInsights using Log4Net instead of default api Telemetry client. When I run the application from VS2013 neither I get any error message nor am seeing logs in Azure portal.
Pleaes help me figure out this issue.
Note: Am using Log4net appender for AppIinsights.
Web.Config
<log4net>
<root>
<level value="ALL" />
<appender-ref ref="aiAppender" />
</root>
<appender name="aiAppender" type="Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Log4NetAppender.ApplicationInsightsAppender, Microsoft.ApplicationInsights.Log4NetAppender">
<layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
<conversionPattern value="%message%newline" />
</layout>
</appender>
MVC Controller
public class HomeController : Controller
{
private static readonly ILog Log = LogManager.GetLogger(MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);
public ActionResult Index()
{
//Trace.TraceInformation("Home accessed at : {0}", DateTime.UtcNow);
Log.Info(string.Format("Home accessed at : {0}", DateTime.UtcNow));
return View();
}
}
Regards,
Rajaram.

Answer 1

If you are not seeing any log4net output, i'm presuming you are missing some log4net startup code, like this:
log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure();
which you might want in your startup class / code somewhere. Without that, log4net doesn't know wo read the configuration that's in web.config.

Answer 2

In addition to the answer from #JohnGardner, you can instead add a line to your AssemblyInfo.cs file as so: -
[assembly: log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator(Watch = true)]
There is more discussion on the two approaches in the following question: -
Configure Log4Net in web application
And in a comment in somewhere in that discussion is a link to the log4net FAQs that touches on the differences in the question "When should I log my first message?": -
https://logging.apache.org/log4net/release/faq.html#first-log
I found both of these to be of further use to me.