Failed obtaining configuration for Common.Logging

Question

I'm trying to configure a console application with the following logging assemblies:

• Common.Logging.dll (2.1.0.0)
• Common.Logging.Log4Net1211.dll (2.1.0.0)
• log4net.dll (1.2.11.0)

If the logger gets configured programmatically then everything works fine:

NameValueCollection properties = new NameValueCollection(); properties["showDateTime"] = "true";    
Common.Logging.LogManager.Adapter = new Common.Logging.Simple.ConsoleOutLoggerFactoryAdapter(properties);

But if I try to launch it using the following configuration file, it blows up:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
    <configSections>
        <sectionGroup name="common">
            <section name="logging" type="Common.Logging.ConfigurationSectionHandler, Common.Logging" />
        </sectionGroup>
    </configSections>

    <common>
    <logging>
        <factoryAdapter type="Common.Logging.Log4Net.Log4NetLoggerFactoryAdapter, Common.Logging.Log4Net">
             <arg key="configType" value="FILE-WATCH"/>
            <arg key="configFile" value="~/Log4NET.xml"/>
        </factoryAdapter>
    </logging>
</common>
</configuration>

These are the relevant error messages:

{"Unable to cast object of type 'System.Configuration.DefaultSection' to type 'System.Configuration.AppSettingsSection'."}

{"Failed obtaining configuration for Common.Logging from configuration section 'common/logging'."}

It seems to being unable to parse my configuration file, does anyone know what the correct format should be or is it something else that's wrong? I created my configuration file using the official documentation.

Answer 1

I'm using

Common.Logging v3.3.1.0

with

Common.Logging.Log4Net1213 v3.3.1.0

in ASP.NET Web API v5, which throws exception

"parent configuration sections are not allowed"

Exception is thrown from Common.Logging.ConfigurationSectionHandler.Create method

In order to make this work, I had to grammatically configure the adapter

var properties = new Common.Logging.Configuration.NameValueCollection();
properties["configType"] = "INLINE";
Common.Logging.LogManager.Adapter = new Log4NetLoggerFactoryAdapter(properties);

I still have to figure out why IIS/Express calls the Create method twice, which is causing the exception to be thrown inside the if condition, but at least the pressure is off for now.

Answer 2

I was having this (or related) issue as well and after half a day of error hunting and debugging I narrowed it down to a configuration problem.

The exception was the same as the OP and the inner exception a few level inside of it was failing to find Common.Logging.Log4Net (FileNotFoundException).

It seems that for the Common.Logging.Log4Net1211 NuGet package, they have renamed the assemblyname to be Common.Logging.Log4Net1211 instead of simply Common.Logging.Log4Net. This means in your app.config you need to refer to this new assembly name: <factoryAdapter type="Common.Logging.Log4Net.Log4NetLoggerFactoryAdapter, Common.Logging.Log4net1211">

Here's my entire common/logging section of app.config for reference:

<common>
  <logging>
    <!-- Notice that it's Log4net1211 -->
    <factoryAdapter type="Common.Logging.Log4Net.Log4NetLoggerFactoryAdapter, Common.Logging.Log4net1211">
      <arg key="configType" value="FILE-WATCH" />
      <arg key="configFile" value="~/Log4Net-MAIN.config" />
    </factoryAdapter>
  </logging>
</common>

Answer 3

I found that it was due to the Common.Logging.Log4Net1211 NuGet package retrieveing an older version of Common.Logging. Check for NuGet updates to Common.Logging and if you find one download it and try again.

Answer 4

There are two problems with your application (the one I downloaded):

1. Your configSections in app.config looks like this:

<configSections>
    <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler, log4net"/>

    <sectionGroup name="common">
        <section name="logging" type="Common.Logging.ConfigurationSectionHandler, Common.Logging" />
    </sectionGroup>

    <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,log4net" />
</configSections>

Notice that the log4net-section is declared twice? Remove the first one.

1. After removing the first log4net-section, I get the following:

Could not load file or assembly 'log4net, Version=1.2.11.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=669e0ddf0bb1aa2a' or one of its dependencies. The located assembly's manifest definition does not match the assembly reference. (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80131040)

I downloaded log4net 1.2.11.0 from the log4net website, unzipped it, unblocked the dll and replaced the log4net in your example and it seems to work.

Answer 5

I got it working by installing a missing package

Install-Package Common.Logging.Log4Net1211

Answer 6

Can you try with Common.Logging.dll version 2.1.1.0 instead.

You can download and compare the source of the two versions yourself, but as far as I can see the only difference between 2.1.0.0 and 2.1.1.0 is a change relating to reading the configuration settings in order to workaround a Framework 4.0 bug. The description of the bug (see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2580188) refers to running from a network share which I am not running from a network, yet a test app using 2.1.0.0 generates the same error as you are getting whereas 2.1.1.0 doesn't.

If you are using another library that expects version 2.1.0.0 of common.logging.dll, then you should be able to using an assembly redirect to use 2.1.1.0 instead.

PS

Not sure whether it is relevant, but I left the name of the dll as Common.Logging.Log4Net121.dll and modified the app.config instead