Why aren't my classes logging, but Spring is logging (Spring boot with Maven and log4j)?

Question

I've been beating my head against the wall for almost 2 solid days, trying all the suggestions I've found in the answers to several questions here, with no joy. Spring appears to be logging just fine, but nothing is being logged from my application classes. I'm using Spring boot 1.5.3 and building an app that uses log4j and runs in a tomcat container (so it doesn't need Spring's embedded tomcat container). Here are the dependencies that were in my original pom.xml:

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.3.RELEASE</version>
</parent>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>ch.qos.logback</groupId>
                <artifactId>logback-classic</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.jboss.logging</groupId>
                <artifactId>jboss-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
                <artifactId>hibernate-validator</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>log4j-over-slf4j</artifactId>
                <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
        <version>2.7</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j-jcl</artifactId>
        <version>2.7</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.7</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
        <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
        <version>1.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j-web</artifactId>
        <version>2.7</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j-slf4j-impl</artifactId>
        <version>2.7</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-log4j2</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.1</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

I tried the solution suggested by @M.Deinum with no change in outcome: Spring logged successfully, my classes did not. The pom.xml in that case looked like this:

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.3.RELEASE</version>
</parent>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-log4j2</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.1</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

I have the following config file at the root of my app's class path:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Configuration status="DEBUG">
    <Appenders>
        <Console name="Console" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
            <PatternLayout pattern="%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n"/>
        </Console>
    </Appenders>
    <Loggers>
        <Logger name="org.springframework.beans.factory" level="DEBUG"/>
        <Root level="DEBUG">
            <AppenderRef ref="Console"/>
        </Root>
    </Loggers>
</Configuration>

The dependencies currently in my pom.xml are only the latest in a loooooong line of permutations I've tried, using code taken from the Spring Framework Reference 4.3.8.RELEASE and multiple questions answered here on stackoverflow.

Answer 1

Cleanup your dependencies, you are excluding too much and including too much. Spring Boot has separate starters for all logging packages supported, simply use those.

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <exclusions>            
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-log4j2</artifactId>
    </dependency>

</dependencies>

This is also explained in the reference guide .

Now when you want to use logging make sure to go through the SLF4J API and not Log4j2 directly (as this might trigger very early initialization and interfere with the setup from Spring Boot).

To create a deployable war you need to modify some of the dependencies with scope provided not exclude them. That is also described in the reference guide .

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>