I had the same problem (on lucid) with a custom log file, In my case the permissions were wrong: After changing them to user=syslog and group=adm the reload works.
It seems that rsyslog is starting with root privileges and then dropping them. That way it works on startup (and restart) but not on reload. A reload of rsyslog is triggered by logrotate.
I had the same problem (on lucid) with a custom log file, In my case the permissions were wrong: After changing them to user=syslog and group=adm the reload works.
It seems that rsyslog is starting with root privileges and then dropping them. That way it works on startup (and restart) but not on reload. A reload of rsyslog is triggered by logrotate.