Serilog does not write logs to SQL Server using Serilog.Sinks.MssqlServer

Question

I'm trying to set up a logging mechanism using Serilog. I want to write the logs to both the file and a SQL Server database.

Currently I can write the logs to the file system, but I cannot write to the database. I also did the same simple setup as in the Serilog documentation

Thank you.

public class Program
{
        public static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            var logDB = @"Server=localhost;Initial Catalog=SHARED_NOTE;User ID=sa;Password=sql123;";
            var sinkOpts = new MSSqlServerSinkOptions();
            sinkOpts.TableName = "Logs";
            var columnOpts = new ColumnOptions();
            columnOpts.Store.Remove(StandardColumn.Properties);
            columnOpts.Store.Add(StandardColumn.LogEvent);
            columnOpts.LogEvent.DataLength = 2048;
            columnOpts.TimeStamp.NonClusteredIndex = true;

            Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
                .WriteTo.File(new CompactJsonFormatter(), "Log.json", rollingInterval: RollingInterval.Day)
                .WriteTo.Console(restrictedToMinimumLevel:Serilog.Events.LogEventLevel.Information)
                .WriteTo.MSSqlServer(
                        connectionString: logDB,
                        sinkOptions: sinkOpts,
                        columnOptions: columnOpts
                 )
                .CreateLogger();

            try
            {
                Log.Information("Application starting up.");

                CreateHostBuilder(args).Build().Run();
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                Log.Fatal(ex, "The application failed to start up correctly.");
            }
            finally
            {
                Log.CloseAndFlush();
            }
        }

        public static IHostBuilder CreateHostBuilder(string[] args) =>
            Host.CreateDefaultBuilder(args)
                .UseSerilog()
                .ConfigureWebHostDefaults(webBuilder =>
                {
                    webBuilder.UseStartup<Startup>();
                });
    }

I added AddLogging to startup.cs :

services.AddLogging();

All packages is setup for a Web API project:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net5.0</TargetFramework>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="FluentValidation" Version="10.3.6" />
    <PackageReference Include="FluentValidation.AspNetCore" Version="10.3.6" />
    <PackageReference Include="Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design" Version="5.0.12">
      <PrivateAssets>all</PrivateAssets>
      <IncludeAssets>runtime; build; native; contentfiles; analyzers; buildtransitive</IncludeAssets>
    </PackageReference>
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.AspNetCore" Version="4.1.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Formatting.Compact" Version="1.1.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Sinks.File" Version="5.0.0" />
    <PackageReference Include="Serilog.Sinks.MSSqlServer" Version="5.6.1" />
    <PackageReference Include="Swashbuckle.AspNetCore" Version="5.6.3" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <ProjectReference Include="..\..\Core\SharedNote.Application\SharedNote.Application.csproj" />
    <ProjectReference Include="..\..\Infrastructure\SharedNotes.Persistence\SharedNotes.Persistence.csproj" />
  </ItemGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\Images\" />
    <Folder Include="wwwroot\Docs\" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Answer 1

Not enough reputation for a comment, have you tried following this article? Serilog log to SQL .

You haven't added the logging table but I'm going to assume that you followed the Sink and it resembles or is a match to this one?

TABLE [Log] (

   [Id] int IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
   [Message] nvarchar(max) NULL,
   [MessageTemplate] nvarchar(max) NULL,
   [Level] nvarchar(128) NULL,
   [TimeStamp] datetimeoffset(7) NOT NULL,
   [Exception] nvarchar(max) NULL,
   [Properties] xml NULL,
   [LogEvent] nvarchar(max) NULL

   CONSTRAINT [PK_Log]
     PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED ([Id] ASC)

)

Also, from the same article, you can add the following code right after the Logger setup to debug the SQL connection

Serilog.Debugging.SelfLog.Enable(msg =>
{
    Debug.Print(msg);
    Debugger.Break();
});

So in you code it would be

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    .WriteTo.File(new CompactJsonFormatter(),
    "Log.json",
    rollingInterval: RollingInterval.Day)
            .WriteTo.Console(restrictedToMinimumLevel:Serilog.Events.LogEventLevel.Information)
            .WriteTo.MSSqlServer(
                    connectionString: logDB,
                    sinkOptions: sinkOpts,
                    columnOptions: columnOpts
             )
            .CreateLogger();

Serilog.Debugging.SelfLog.Enable(msg =>
{
    Debug.Print(msg);
    Debugger.Break();
});