How can I prevent incorrect logging configuration from hiding critical errors?

Logging Misconfiguration

Your production logs are empty, yet users report failures. The most common culprit is a logging provider that writes to a file with restricted permissions, or a filter level set too high to capture warnings.

Validating the setup

Inspect your appsettings.json and ensure the minimum level is Information or lower. If you use Serilog or NLog, verify the sink destinations are reachable by the service account. A silent sink is worse than no sink at all.

• Run a quick smoke test that forces a log write immediately after startup.
• Check disk quotas; a full log volume will silently drop new entries.
• Prefer structured logging so you can filter by severity without redeploying.