[HELP]Local MQTT connector `ModuleMQTT` (configuration `moduleMqtt.json`) is not loaded when `remoteConfiguration` is false

[JamesLebron]

Describe the issue

I am running ThingsBoard IoT Gateway on an embedded ARM Linux board (Buildroot-based, Rockchip RK3566).

During development, I configured and tested an MQTT connector using Remote Configuration in the ThingsBoard UI. It worked correctly.

Now I want to productize this connector so that all gateways use a local connector configuration instead of remote configuration.

I did the following:

1. Copied the working MQTT connector configuration from remote configuration to a local file moduleMqtt.json under /etc/thingsboard-gateway/config/.
2. Updated /etc/thingsboard-gateway/config/tb_gateway.json to register this connector:

   "connectors": [
     {
       "type": "mqtt",
       "name": "ModuleMQTT",
       "configuration": "moduleMqtt.json"
     }
   ]

3. Set "remoteConfiguration": false in tb_gateway.json because I want to use only local configuration.
4. Started the gateway manually with:

   thingsboard-gateway 

Expected behavior

• The local MQTT connector ModuleMQTT should be loaded on startup.
• I expect to see log lines like Starting MQTT connector ModuleMQTT ... and connector-specific logs in connector.log.
• In statistics, connectorsStats should contain an entry for ModuleMQTT.
• The gateway should try to connect to the external MQTT broker defined in moduleMqtt.json.

Actual behavior

• The gateway itself starts successfully and connects to ThingsBoard, but the local MQTT connector does not appear to be loaded.
• Console output shows messages like:

  Connector with id c5cdde8b-9ca5-4035-b4f5-b3fe261ccc0f not found, trying to use default connector...
  Connector with id c5cdde8b-9ca5-4035-b4f5-b3fe261ccc0f not found, trying to use default connector...
  Connector with id c5cdde8b-9ca5-4035-b4f5-b3fe261ccc0f not found, trying to use default connector...
  Cannot use TLS connection on this port. Client will try to connect without TLS.
  [STRLAN ONLY] 2025-12-08 16:58:38,277 - INFO - tb_gateway_service - Start checking new gateway attributes...
  [STRLAN ONLY] 2025-12-08 16:58:38,284 - INFO - tb_gateway_service - Gateway core started
  [STRLAN ONLY] 2025-12-08 16:58:38,293 - INFO - tb_gateway_service - Gateway connected to ThingsBoard
  [STRLAN ONLY] 2025-12-08 16:58:38,303 - INFO - tb_gateway_service - Persistent device storage created
  [STRLAN ONLY] 2025-12-08 16:58:38,305 - INFO - tb_gateway_service - Gateway started.
  [STRLAN ONLY] 2025-12-08 16:58:38,319 - INFO - statistics_service - Collected requests statistics...
  

• connectorsStats is always {}, which suggests that no connector is actually active.
• I do not see any log line indicating that ModuleMQTT is started, nor any connection attempts to the external MQTT broker defined in moduleMqtt.json.
• The UUID c5cdde8b... looks like it belongs to an old remotely-configured connector. My understanding, however, is that when "remoteConfiguration": false is set, the gateway should ignore any remote connector definitions and only use the local connectors array from tb_gateway.json.

So the core issue is:

Even though the local MQTT connector ModuleMQTT (configuration file moduleMqtt.json) is correctly listed in tb_gateway.json and the file exists in the config directory, it is not loaded/started when using local configuration mode.

[samson0v]

Hi @JamesLebron, thanks for your interest in ThingsBoard IoT Gateway!
We will try to reproduce your issue and let you know about the result.
So, let's stay in touch!