so it turned out the log(x) display was somehow corrupted by my xRange(xMin,xMax) values.
My x values range from 0 to 1e7 (0 to 10MHz). My actual data ranges from 1e-3 (1mHz) to 1e7 (10MHz). I previously set xRange(1e-9 to 1e7) to avoid log(0) @xMin and so the user can slightly scroll below the smallest x value.
In this setup I am no longer getting nicely logarithmically spaced vertical lines, 1e^n where n<0 are not displayed. Then modified xRange to (-100,1e7) and now I am getting proper vertical lines.
So xRange(-100,1e7) is a solution to get proper vertical lines, but the overall UI is no longer super nice because my values never reach x<0, and the user can actually scroll down to -100(whatever xMin value I set)
don't know what's happening with axisItems or whatever class is used in all of that