Hi @mystarrocks,
Ah ha! Yes, that’s exactly why you’re sending PERSISTENT and getting DIRECT - the topic subscription is causing message demotion. It’s always worth checking this, because in this situation you may think you’re getting guaranteed but you’re not and so may miss messages.
Regarding non-exclusive vs exclusive: no. If the queue is exclusive, only the first flow to bind will get messages. If the queue is non-exclusive, all queues bound will get messages, distributed in a round-robin way.
In general, it’s best practice that each seprate app should have its own queue. That way it “manages” that queue and the messages on it. So yes, app1 should have a queue for itself, as should app2.