MQTT topic prefix

ESPHome
1

Hello awesome guys :pray:
I am trying to connect Node MCU(esphome) to Thingsboard platform through MQTT, when trying with MQTT explore app everything works good but with node it keeps connect and disconnect from MQTT.
First I want to know is it possible to completely ignore topic prefix, since Thingsboard define the topics to publish and subscribe and I can’t figure how to customize it, so I think it ends up with different topics (topic I publish to and platform is listening on).

Example:

mqtt:
  on_connect:
    - then:
       mqtt.publish_json:
         topic: /provision
         payload: |-
           root["deviceName"] = "my device";
2

You shouldn’t use a leading slash in the topic.

https://www.hivemq.com/blog/mqtt-essentials-part-5-mqtt-topics-best-practices/

3

Fine, I removed “/”
But in esphome logs node keeps connecting and disconnecting, and I think the problem is Thingsboard listen to messages on defined topics (and I can’t figure out how to change it), so I am trying with esphome to publish the messages as it is with no prefixes or any home assistant predefined topics.

4

Use a desktop app such as MQTT Explorer to connect to your broker to see what you have available.

5

Already using it and working good with no problem.
If you have spare ESP board can you try to connect it to this broker
demo.thingsboard.io
Port
1883
Username
a4yyTMtQTevTaasxI35B
And check esphome logs, it supposed to keep connecting and disconnecting

6

I’m not comfortable using anybody’s credentials. I think you should redact that message. We need to find another way to debug this.

7

[SOLVED]
I hope AI got the ability to say bad words or explode the PC screen on my face, as always it was my naive mistake that I send string and it is supposed to be JSON :roll_eyes:
this type of naive mistakes I think, that we expect a huge problem and in fact the solution in front of us always and that is why I have wasted 12 hours of my life.

8

Post it here on the forum where anybody can help. I’ll have a look when you do.

9

thank you @parautenbach and I am sorry for occupying precious resources of your brain :pray: