Persistent actor not receiving messages while using jdbc plugin

Akka Persistence / Event Sourcing
1

I am trying to use akka persistent actors and the jdbc plugin for the journal. However, my persistent actors do not receive/handle the incomming messages with the receiveCommand function. However, I do not get dead letter messages so I do not know what is going wrong.

application.conf file:

akka {
  loglevel = DEBUG

actor {
    #provider = cluster
}

  persistence {
    journal.plugin = "jdbc-journal"
    snapshot-store.plugin = "jdbc-snapshot-store"
  }
}

jdbc-journal {
  slick = ${slick}
}

# the akka-persistence-snapshot-store in use
jdbc-snapshot-store {
  slick = ${slick}
}

jdbc-read-journal {
  slick = ${slick}
}

slick {
  profile = "slick.jdbc.MySQLProfile$"
  dataSourceClass = "slick.jdbc.DriverDataSource"
  db {
   dataSourceClass = "slick.jdbc.DriverDataSource"
    driver = "com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver"
    url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/squirrel_persistence"
    user = "root"
    password = ""
    numThreads = 5
    maxConnections = 5
    minConnections = 1
  }
}

code from actor:

class ExampleActor extends PersistentActor {
  override def persistenceId = "sample-id-1"

   var state = ExampleState()

  def updateState(event: Evt): Unit = {
    state = state.updated(event)
  }

  def numEvents =
    state.size

  override def receiveRecover: Receive = {
    case evt: Evt                                 => updateState(evt)
    case SnapshotOffer(_, snapshot: ExampleState) => state = snapshot
  }

  val snapShotInterval = 1000

  override def receiveCommand: Receive= {
    case Cmd(data) => {
      println("in the command code block")
      persist(Evt(s"${data}-${numEvents}")) { event => {
        updateState(event)
        context.system.eventStream.publish(event)
        if (lastSequenceNr % snapShotInterval == 0 && lastSequenceNr != 0)
          saveSnapshot(state)
      }
      }
    }
    case "print"=>println(state)
  }
}

test code:

class ShoppingCartSpec extends TestKit(ActorSystem("test-System"
  ,ConfigFactory.parseFile(new File("src/test/resources/application.conf")).resolve()
)) with AnyWordSpecLike with ImplicitSender {
  

  "The persistent actor" should {

    "Test Command" in {
      val persistentActor = system.actorOf(Props[ExampleActor](),"persistentActor1")
      Thread.sleep(2000)
      println("before the send")
      persistentActor ! Cmd("foo")
      persistentActor ! Cmd("bar")
      persistentActor ! Cmd("fizz")
      persistentActor ! Cmd("buzz")
      persistentActor ! "print"

      Thread.sleep(10000)
      println("after messages should be sent and received")
    }
  }
}

Is there something obvious I am missing ? thanks in advance!