I used System.setProperty("log4j.defaultInitOverride", "true");
So I can get clean loading: log4j: Default initialization of overridden by log4j.defaultInitOverrideproperty. log4j: Parsing for [root] with value=[DEBUG, stdout]. log4j: Level token is [DEBUG]. log4j: Category root set to DEBUG log4j: Parsing appender named "stdout". log4j: Parsing layout options for "stdout". log4j: Setting property [conversionPattern] to [%5p [%c] %m%n]. log4j: End of parsing for "stdout". log4j: Parsed "stdout" options. log4j: Parsing for [org.apache.http.wire] with value=[DEBUG]. log4j: Level token is [DEBUG]. log4j: Category org.apache.http.wire set to DEBUG log4j: Handling log4j.additivity.org.apache.http.wire=[null] log4j: Parsing for [org.apache.http] with value=[DEBUG]. log4j: Level token is [DEBUG]. log4j: Category org.apache.http set to DEBUG log4j: Handling log4j.additivity.org.apache.http=[null] log4j: Parsing for [jobManager] with value=[DEBUG]. <--------------- That proves that MY config file is being loaded log4j: Level token is [DEBUG]. log4j: Category jobManager set to DEBUG log4j: Handling log4j.additivity.jobManager=[null] log4j: Finished configuring. DEBUG [jobManager.UploadManager] some test message <--- Here should be output of HttpClient but its not ---> DEBUG [jobManager.UploadManager] some test message I slept with the problem, yet no solutions came to my mind. For the sake of clarity here is output of: ClassLoader cl = ClassLoader.getSystemClassLoader(); URL[] urls = ((URLClassLoader) cl).getURLs(); for (URL url : urls) { System.out.println(url.getFile()); } /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/httpcomponents-client-4.1.3/lib/commons-codec-1.4.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/httpcomponents-client-4.1.3/lib/httpclient-4.1.3.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/httpcomponents-client-4.1.3/lib/httpclient-cache-4.1.3.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/httpcomponents-client-4.1.3/lib/httpcore-4.1.4.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/httpcomponents-client-4.1.3/lib/httpmime-4.1.3.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/commons-logging-1.1.1/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/apache-log4j-1.2.16/log4j-1.2.16.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/commons-codec-1.6/commons-codec-1.6-javadoc.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/commons-codec-1.6/commons-codec-1.6-tests.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/commons-codec-1.6/commons-codec-1.6.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/selenium-server-standalone-2.20.0.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/scribe-1.3.0.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/pbapi-j2se.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/apache-mime4j-0.6.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/commons-codec-1.3.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/commons-codec-1.4.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/commons-lang-2.4.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/commons-logging-1.1.1.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/commons-validator-1.3.1.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/httpclient-4.0.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/httpclient-4.1.3.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/httpclient-cache-4.1.3.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/httpcore-4.0.1.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/httpcore-4.1.4.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/httpmime-4.0.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/httpmime-4.1.3.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/jcip-annotations-1.0.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/json-1.0.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/junit-4.9b2.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/log4j-1.2.16.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/signpost-commonshttp4-1.2.1.1.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/signpost-commonshttp4-1.2.1.2.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/signpost-core-1.2.1.1.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/signpost-core-1.2.1.2.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/signpost-jetty6-1.2.1.2.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/slf4j-api-1.6.1.jar /home/min/ucng/javaLibs/pbapi-full-1.4.0.91/dist/lib/default/slf4j-log4j12-1.6.1.jar The output of: System.out.println(httpClient.getClass().getClassLoader().getResource("log4j.properties")); is: null <--- I don't know if it is relevant or not. I thought about log4j.jar being in a different folder than httpClient but it shouldn't matter since it's the classpath that rules over. I am really out of ideas. Help please :( q.q