diff --git a/headless-services/commons/commons-util/src/main/java/org/springframework/ide/vscode/commons/util/LogRedirect.java b/headless-services/commons/commons-util/src/main/java/org/springframework/ide/vscode/commons/util/LogRedirect.java
index 7fba9efb1..d328cd3a4 100644
--- a/headless-services/commons/commons-util/src/main/java/org/springframework/ide/vscode/commons/util/LogRedirect.java
+++ b/headless-services/commons/commons-util/src/main/java/org/springframework/ide/vscode/commons/util/LogRedirect.java
@@ -13,25 +13,27 @@ package org.springframework.ide.vscode.commons.util;
 import java.io.File;
 import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
 import java.io.FileOutputStream;
-import java.io.IOException;
 import java.io.PrintStream;
 
 public class LogRedirect {
 
-	public static void bootRedirectToFile(String name) throws IOException {
+	public static void bootRedirectToFile(String name) {
 		String logfilePath = System.getProperty("sts.log.file");
 		if (StringUtil.hasText(logfilePath)) {
-			PrintStream logFile = logFileStream(logfilePath);
-			System.setErr(logFile);			
+			try {
+				PrintStream logFile = logFileStream(logfilePath);
+				System.setErr(logFile);
+			} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
+				System.err.println(e);
+				System.err.println("Log file '" + logfilePath + "' cannot be found. Ensure that all folders in the path exist!");
+				System.setErr(switchOffLogging());
+			}
 		}
 	}
 
 	private static PrintStream logFileStream(String logfilePath) throws FileNotFoundException {
 		if (logfilePath.equals("/dev/null")) {
-			System.err.println("Disabling server log output. No more output will be sent after this.");
-			//redirect to a file called "/dev/null" works fine in Unix, but we also want this
-			// to work on Mac and Windows. So we create our own '/dev/null' stream
-			return new PrintStream(new NullOutputStream());
+			return switchOffLogging();
 		} else {
 			System.err.println("Redirecting log output to: "+logfilePath);
 			File logfile = new File(logfilePath);
@@ -39,13 +41,12 @@ public class LogRedirect {
 			return logFile;
 		}
 	}
-
-	public static void redirectToFile(String name) throws IOException {
-		String logfilePath = System.getProperty("sts.log.file");
-		if (StringUtil.hasText(logfilePath)) {
-			PrintStream logFile = logFileStream(logfilePath);
-			System.setErr(logFile);
-		}
-	}
 	
+	private static PrintStream switchOffLogging() {
+		System.err.println("Disabling server log output. No more output will be sent after this.");
+		//redirect to a file called "/dev/null" works fine in Unix, but we also want this
+		// to work on Mac and Windows. So we create our own '/dev/null' stream
+		return new PrintStream(new NullOutputStream());
+	}
+
 }