I have the same issue as the appender is defined based on a property set. This is a blocker for us to upgrade from Logback 1.2.x.
<!-- Uncomment this property if you need the extra appender --> <!-- property name="EXTRA" value="ON" /> --> <if condition='isDefined("EXTRA")'> <then> <appender name="EXTRA_APPENDER" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender"> ... </appender> </then> </if> ... <root level="INFO"> <appender-ref ref="CONSOLE" /> <appender-ref ref="FILE" /> <if condition='isDefined("EXTRA")'> <then> <appender-ref ref="EXTRA_APPENDER" /> </then> </if> </root>