When setting up virtual host entries, apache is fine with document roots that don't exist. It warns you that they don't exist and then doesn't start them up. However if you have a log entry that doesn't exist, instead of warning you that it doesn't exist and just not starting that virtual host, it just crashes out and writes to the log file. It is not helpful to write to the log file. It should write to the screen. Also a configtest should reveal that the log directory does not exist. I don't think Apache should try to create the directory if it's not there, as that's more than it is created to do, however, it should handle that more gracefully.
This would be a good feature to add to the new test hook. Check all the log directives, see if we have the file perms to create or append to the log files, etc.
*** Bug 47219 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Also discussed on launchpad by the Ubuntu people. https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apache2/+bug/875883 This problem will become important in the future as more and more people redirect their log to the /tmp to counter SSD wear.
This is part of apache 2.4.1, see r1238824