diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 5de697a37e3..acb9435ac64 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -43,6 +43,9 @@ maven-eclipse.xml
 # vscode
 .vscode
 
+# Metals (Scala LSP)
+.metals/
+
 # checksum files
 *.crc
 
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/applications/nn/BaseTest.java b/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/applications/nn/BaseTest.java
index f8b33fdc3eb..b5312612b62 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/applications/nn/BaseTest.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/applications/nn/BaseTest.java
@@ -32,12 +32,6 @@ public abstract class BaseTest extends MLContextTestBase {
 
 	private static final String ERROR_STRING = "ERROR:";
 
-	public BaseTest() {
-		//disable debug and trace logging in mlcontext super class since
-		//the nn tests execute a lot of mini-batch operations
-		_enableTracing = false;
-	}
-
 	protected void run(String name) {
 		run(name, false);
 	}
diff --git a/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/functions/mlcontext/MLContextTestBase.java b/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/functions/mlcontext/MLContextTestBase.java
index b21bcaf54c5..0a54ac1aab5 100644
--- a/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/functions/mlcontext/MLContextTestBase.java
+++ b/src/test/java/org/apache/sysds/test/functions/mlcontext/MLContextTestBase.java
@@ -26,8 +26,6 @@
 
 import org.apache.commons.lang3.tuple.ImmutablePair;
 import org.apache.commons.lang3.tuple.Pair;
-import org.apache.log4j.Level;
-import org.apache.log4j.Logger;
 import org.apache.spark.api.java.JavaSparkContext;
 import org.apache.spark.sql.SparkSession;
 import org.apache.sysds.api.mlcontext.MLContext;
@@ -65,8 +63,6 @@ public abstract class MLContextTestBase extends AutomatedTestBase {
 
 	protected String testDir = null;
 	protected String testName = null;
-	protected Level _oldLevel = null;
-	protected boolean _enableTracing = true;
 	
 	@Override
 	public void setUp() {
@@ -76,13 +72,6 @@ public void setUp() {
 
 		addTestConfiguration(dir, name);
 		getAndLoadTestConfiguration(name);
-		
-		//run all mlcontext tests in loglevel trace to improve test coverage
-		//of all logging in various components
-		if( _enableTracing ) {
-			_oldLevel = Logger.getLogger("org.apache.sysds").getLevel();
-			Logger.getLogger("org.apache.sysds").setLevel( Level.TRACE );
-		}
 	}
 	
 	@BeforeClass
@@ -96,8 +85,6 @@ public static void setUpClass() {
 	@Override
 	public void tearDown() {
 		super.tearDown();
-		if(_enableTracing)
-			Logger.getLogger("org.apache.sysds").setLevel( _oldLevel );
 	}
 
 	@AfterClass