MQTT disconnects - Tried keepalive but no go. ESP8266 Board

Configuration
13

Thanks @old_fogey and @bogd

I did notice that send messages in MQTT kept those messages down, but not fully. I was sending “off” messages to my MQTT server once ever 2 seconds but was still getting disconnects.

My quesiton now is, although I’m not using loop() I am using the following

void loop(){
    Serial.println("Entering loop()");
// First make sure MQTT is connected 
  {
  if (!client.connected()) {
    reconnect();           }
  }  //Close If

Wouldn’t that accomplish the same?