Hi and thanks in advance for the help.
I'm tearing my hair out over here trying to get this to work: a siple logger
that writes to the application section of the event log.

This is using log4net 1.2.10.0
Here is the app config:
--------------------------------------------------------------
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="log4net"
type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler, log4net" />
  </configSections>

  <log4net>
    <appender name="EventLogAppender"
type="log4net.Appender.EventLogAppender" >
      <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
        <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger
[%property{NDC}] - %message%newline" />
      </layout>
    </appender>
    <root>
      <level value="ALL" />
      <appender-ref ref="EventLogAppender" />
    </root>
  </log4net>
</configuration>
--------------------------------------------------------------------
here is my code:
  log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure();
  logger = LogManager.GetLogger("EventLogAppender");
  logger.Error("test");
-------------------------------------------------------------------

No errors, nothing happens! I notice that there are no appenders.
nothing is written to the event log.

I am tearing my hair out trying to figure out what is going on, can somebody
help?
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You didn't mention what type of application this is being run from.  I
have two suggestions for error checking, don't know if they will help.

The first is that if you are getting errors, you won't be able to see
them unless you are running from a console application (or unless you
set up a trace appender to grab the errors, I haven't done that so
you'll have to google for it).  This will tell you if the problem is
with the error logging itself.

The second is a method which will tell you how your log4net is
configured.  It's written in C#, so you may need to translate.  This
should tell you if it is your log4net configuration process which is
going astray.

        public static string GetHierarchyInformation() {

            Hierarchy hier = (Hierarchy)LogManager.GetRepository();

            StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();

            // first, look for it in the root
            sb.AppendLine("Root Information:");
            sb.Append("   Name: " + hier.Name);
            sb.AppendLine("   Threshold: " + hier.Threshold.ToString());

            sb.Append("   Root Appenders: ");
            foreach (IAppender a in hier.Root.Appenders) {
                sb.Append(a.Name + ", ");
            }
            sb.AppendLine("");
            sb.AppendLine("Hierarchy Appenders:");
            foreach (IAppender a in hier.GetAppenders()) {
                sb.AppendLine(FormatAppenderLine(a));
            }

            sb.AppendLine("Loggers:");
            foreach (ILogger l in hier.GetCurrentLoggers()) {

                Logger log = (Logger)l;
                sb.Append("   " + log.Name);
                sb.Append("  Additivity: " + log.Additivity.ToString());

                sb.Append("  Level: ");
                if (log.Level == null) {
                    sb.Append("null");
                }
                else {
                    sb.Append(log.Level.ToString());
                }
                sb.AppendLine("");
                foreach (IAppender appender in log.Appenders) {
                    sb.AppendLine(FormatAppenderLine(appender));
                }
            }
            return sb.ToString();
        }
        private static string FormatAppenderLine(IAppender appender) {
            StringBuilder sb2 = new StringBuilder();
            sb2.Append("      Appender: " + appender.Name);
            sb2.Append("  Type: " + appender.GetType().ToString());

            if (appender is log4net.Appender.FileAppender) {
                FileAppender app = (FileAppender)appender;
                sb2.Append("  File: " + app.File);
            }
            else if (appender is log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender) {
                RollingFileAppender app = (RollingFileAppender)appender;
                sb2.Append("  File: " + app.File);
            }
            else if (appender is log4net.Appender.SmtpAppender) {
                SmtpAppender app = (SmtpAppender)appender;
                sb2.Append("  To: " + app.To);
            }
            return sb2.ToString();
        }

This IS a console application, .net 3.5, and the app.config file is set to
always copy on build, so that rules out number one.

I ran the code you suggested, and yielded this information:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Root Information:
   Name: log4net-default-repository   Threshold: ALL
   Root Appenders: EventLogAppender,
Hierarchy Appenders:
      Appender: EventLogAppender  Type: log4net.Appender.EventLogAppender
Loggers:
   EventLogAppender  Additivity: True  Level: null
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Does anything in there jump out at you, such as the "Level" perhaps?

Try using "System.Configuration.IgnoreSectionHandler" as the type for the configuration section handler.

I set my config section handler to:
<configSections>
    <section name="log4net" type="System.Configuration.IgnoreSectionHandler"
/>
  </configSections>

and it gave the exact same behavior, no error messages, and nothing in the
event log.:confused:

I tried your code, as originally posted, locally and it works with the addition of the declaration of the logger variable ("ILog logger;").  The message should output to the "Application" log.  Couple of questions:
Are you expecting it to create and log to a "EventLogAppender" log?
Have you tried running this locally and checking your local event log?
If no, have you validated that security is correctly set/configured to allow you to write to the event log of the remote machine?

The first thing I would is to make sure log4net itself is working. Your config file runs correctly when I add a ConsoleAppender:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler, log4net" />
  </configSections>
  <log4net>
    <appender name="EventLogAppender" type="log4net.Appender.EventLogAppender" >
      <layout type="log4net.Layout.SimpleLayout" />
    </appender>
    <appender name="ConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ConsoleAppender" >
      <layout type="log4net.Layout.SimpleLayout" />
    </appender>
    <root>
      <level value="ALL" />
      <appender-ref ref="EventLogAppender" />
      <appender-ref ref="ConsoleAppender" />
    </root>
  </log4net>
</configuration>

I can also see the entries in the Event Log. Internal debugging:

  <appSettings>
    <add key="log4net.Internal.Debug" value="true" />
  </appSettings>

didn't show any problems. Do you get an exceptions when internal debugging is turned on? From what I can tell it looks like there's something wrong with the machine its running on.

By golly, you got it!!!

By changing my layout to log4net.Layout.SimpleLayout, it started working!
The problem was with the layout format:
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
something in there caused the logger to fail. What is annoying is how
silently it failed, I wish there was an option to make log4net throw
verbose, easy-to-understand exceptions!

I got the layout string from various examples on the google. Go figure
someone posted code that fails...