Unable to locate plugin type for Custom log4j2 Appender

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Hi,

I am using log4j2 to set up logging in my project. Currently, I use
JsonTemplateLayout and console appender type, which works fine:

(from my log4j.properties file:)
> ...
> appender.console.type = Console
> appender.console.name = console
> appender.console.target = SYSTEM_ERR
> appender.console.layout.type = JsonTemplateLayout
> ...


However, I'd like to implement some custom formatting on top of the default
JsonTemplateLayout. I read the docs
<https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/extending.html> about
extending log4j2 using a custom appender class, however when I run my
program with these log4j.properties settings:

rootLogger.appenderRef.stdout.ref = packageName.CustomAppender



> appender.console.type = CustomAppender

appender.console.name = CustomAppender

appender.console.target = SYSTEM_ERR

appender.console.layout.type = JsonTemplateLayout



> log4j2.plugin.packages = packageName


I get these errors:

ERROR StatusConsoleListener Unable to locate plugin type for CustomAppender
ERROR StatusConsoleListener Unable to locate plugin for CustomAppender


Wondering if I'm missing some step of the set-up process for custom
appenders? I thought that adding the appender class and modifying the
log4j.properties file should be sufficient, as the plug-ins docs say
"Serialized plugin listing files are generated by an annotation processor
contained in the log4j-core artifact which will automatically scan your
code for Log4j 2 plugins and output a metadata file in your processed
classes. There is nothing extra that needs to be done to enable this; the
Java compiler will automatically pick up the annotation processor on the
class path unless you explicitly disable it" (
https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/plugins.html)

Appreciate any help I could get, thank you!

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