NLog Inner Exception Loggin

This worked for me:

  <target name="errors" xsi:type="File" layout="
            ${message}
            ${onexception:EXCEPTION OCCURRED\:
            ${exception:format=type,message,method:maxInnerExceptionLevel=5:innerFormat=shortType,message,method}}"
            fileName="\Logs\errors-${shortdate}.log"
            concurrentWrites="true"
            />
  </targets>

Property descriptions :

  • ${exception:maxInnerExceptionLevel=N} - controls how many inner exceptions are logged. defaults to zero for backwards compatibility.
  • ${exception:innerExceptionSeparator=TEXT} - defines text that separates inner exceptions. Defaults to new line string (platform specific).
  • ${exception:innerFormat=FORMATSTRING} - defines the format of inner exceptions the same way that ${exception:format=FORMATSTRING} defines the format of the top-level exception. If this parameter is not specified, the same format is used for both top-level and inner exceptions.

Here is the official Nlog Documentation for logging inner exceptions


another possibility is to add new line between inner exception is to use linebreak &#xD;&#xA in the xml, since innerExceptionSeparator is not parsed in some special way and is loaded as it is written. So innerExceptionSeparator=${newline} will not work.

layout="${message}${onexception:${newline}${exception:maxInnerExceptionLevel=10:innerExceptionSeparator=&#xD;&#xA;&#x9;:format=shortType,message}} 

this will cause inner exception text to be started from the new line and indented by tab character

however this works only if ILogger.Error(Exception, string) method is used. ILogger.Error(Exception) ignores this layout