Missing newline character in rawlogs using log4j and slf4j - maven

Question

I am working on a bug using log4j2 and slf4j. I have been reviewing the commit history in Github, but cannot find where the bug was introduced. In the log file rawlogs.log the newline character %n has been replaced by %replace%n. Please see the example below:
applog.line=16,applog.msg=ConfigChangeListener Initilized!%replace%nXXXXXXXX03172 123456789 2019-06-11 15:06:35.080 devHostname
I am using the following dependencies:
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j-api</artifactId>
<version>2.10.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
<version>2.10.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j-to-slf4j</artifactId>
<version>2.10.0</version>
</dependency>
In the files with logs the LoggerFactory is created with the example below:
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(ClassName.class);
I have tried using both a log4j2.properties, and log4j2.xml files from log4j2 examples, but always get this error on startup:
2019-06-11 15:19:16,063 warmup - 7 ERROR No log4j2 configuration file found. Using default configuration: logging only errors to the console.
The rawlogs.log file is created and populated on startup.
Has anyone experienced this before? Any insight is appreciated.
EDIT: To clarify, project did not use a .xml or .properties file for configurations. I introduced them in an attempt to expose the root cause of the bug, but have not had success.