Tip - Don't Log Exceptions With Log.Information

When it comes to logging, many ILogger implementations allow you to log errors like this:

Log.LogException(Exception ex, string message)

And it works.

Take this code, using Serilog:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
    // Log to the console
	.WriteTo.Console()
	// Log to Seq
	.WriteTo.Seq("http://localhost:5341")
	.CreateLogger();

var ex = new Exception("banana");

Log.Information(ex, "Hello, {Name}!", Environment.UserName);

If I open the Seq console (which you should be using for development, it’s free!), I see the following:

And I can expand to see the exception.

What’s the problem?

You cannot tell by looking where the problem is:

You also can’t filter for the errors:

This makes it difficult to find problems after the fact.

The correct way to do this is to use the correct method: LogError.

Change your code to introduce the new method as follows:

Log.Logger = new LoggerConfiguration()
	.WriteTo.Console()
	.WriteTo.Seq("http://localhost:5341")
	.CreateLogger();

var ex = new Exception("banana");

Log.Error(ex, "Hello, {Name}!", Environment.UserName);
Log.Information(ex, "Hello, {Name}!", Environment.UserName);

If we go to Seq we should see the following; and we can tell by looking where there is a problem.

We can further drill down to see the details.

And best of all, you can filter to quickly see your errors only:

Which is VERY helpful in production.

Happy hacking!