MQTT no-topic-create by default?

Trying to get meshtastic setup on some “test” hardware before I invest in a larger setup for a base station and I’m trying to understand if I’m experiencing PEBKAC with MQTT, or a permissions issue.

My base station unit (old Lilygo Lora) is on the Wifi and connected to MQTT (mqtt.meshtastic.org) - that appears to be working as I show up on some of the various maps. But my mobile device (T-Beam) does not. In an attempt to diagnose the issue I don’t want to spam my home territory with messages (msh/US/bayarea), so I tried to use a private channel with MQTT up/downlink enabled. That should be showing up on MQTT as msh/US/bayarea/2/c/MyTestMesh/ based on my testing using a local MQTT server. However it does not.

Perhaps I’m just making a mistake so I changed my mqtt root topic to msh/US/MyCitybayarea and… I also don’t see that appear on the official meshtastic server (Watching via MQTT Explorer).

So am I just being a stupid newb, or is there no permissions to create new topics? Which would totally make sense - I just can’t find that documented anywhere.

Swapping back and forth a few more times between the official server and a local testing server (after writing some python to help me find messages)… this no longer the case. I’m not sure what I’ve done differently now, but the private channel test is now showing up as well.

So… never mind?

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