Solidity function implementing `public onlyOwner` cannot be called even by the owner - ethereum

Question

I am following along the documentation here: https://docs.alchemyapi.io/alchemy/tutorials/how-to-create-an-nft/how-to-mint-a-nft. And have a smart contract of form:
pragma solidity ^0.8.0;
import "#openzeppelin/contracts/token/ERC721/ERC721.sol";
import "#openzeppelin/contracts/utils/Counters.sol";
import "#openzeppelin/contracts/access/Ownable.sol";
contract NFTA is ERC721, Ownable {
using Counters for Counters.Counter;
Counters.Counter public _tokenIds;
mapping (uint256 => string) public _tokenURIs;
mapping(string => uint8) public hashes;
constructor() public ERC721("NFTA", "NFT") {}
function mintNFT(address recipient, string memory tokenURI)
public onlyOwner
returns (uint256)
{
_tokenIds.increment();
uint256 newItemId = _tokenIds.current();
_mint(recipient, newItemId);
_setTokenURI(newItemId, tokenURI);
return newItemId;
}
/**
* #dev Sets `_tokenURI` as the tokenURI of `tokenId`.
*
* Requirements:
*
* - `tokenId` must exist.
*/
function _setTokenURI(uint256 tokenId, string memory _tokenURI) internal virtual {
require(_exists(tokenId), "ERC721URIStorage: URI set of nonexistent token");
_tokenURIs[tokenId] = _tokenURI;
}
}
When I attempt to estimate the gas cost of minting with this:
const MY_PUBLIC_KEY = '..'
const MY_PRIVATE_KEY = '..'
const ALCHEMY = {
http: '',
websocket:'',
}
const { createAlchemyWeb3 } = require("#alch/alchemy-web3");
const web3 = createAlchemyWeb3(ALCHEMY.http);
const NFTA = require("../artifacts/contracts/OpenSea.sol/NFTA.json");
const address_a = '0x...';
const nft_A = new web3.eth.Contract(NFTA.abi, address_a);
async function mint({ tokenURI, run }){
const nonce = await web3.eth.getTransactionCount(MY_PUBLIC_KEY, 'latest');
const fn = nft_A.methods.mintNFT(MY_PUBLIC_KEY, '')
console.log( 'fn: ', fn.estimateGas() )
}
mint({ tokenURI: '', run: true })
I receive error:
(node:29262) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Error: Returned error: execution reverted: Ownable: caller is not the owner
Presumably because mintNFT is public onlyOwner. However, when I check Etherscan, the From field is the same as MY_PUBLIC_KEY, and I'm not sure what else can be done to sign the transaction as from MY_PUBLIC_KEY. The easy way to solve this is to remove the onlyOwner from function mintNFT, and everything runs as expected. But suppose we want to keep onlyOwner, how would I sign the transaction beyond what is already written above.
Note I'm using hardHat to compile the contracts and deploying them. That is:
npx hardhat compile
npx hardhat run scripts/deploy.js
=============================================
addendum
The exact code given by alchemy to deploy the mint is:
async function mintNFT(tokenURI) {
const nonce = await web3.eth.getTransactionCount(PUBLIC_KEY, 'latest'); //get latest nonce
//the transaction
const tx = {
'from': PUBLIC_KEY,
'to': contractAddress,
'nonce': nonce,
'gas': 500000,
'data': nftContract.methods.mintNFT(PUBLIC_KEY, tokenURI).encodeABI()
};
Note in the transaction the from field is PUBLIC_KEY, the same PUBLIC_KEY that deployed the contract, and in this case the nftContract has public onlyOwner specified. This is exactly what I have done. So conceptually who owns this NFT code? On etherscan is it the to address ( the contract address ), or the from address, which is my public key, the address that deployed the contract, and the one that is calling mint, which is now failing with caller is not the owner error.
Search the internet, I see others have encountered this problem here: https://ethereum.stackexchange.com/questions/94114/erc721-testing-transferfrom, for Truffle you can specify the caller with extra field:
await nft.transferFrom(accounts[0], accounts[1], 1, { from: accounts[1] })
Extra parameters is not an option here because I'm using hardhat.

Answer 1

OpenZeppelin's Ownable.sol defines the default owner value as the contract deployer. You can later change it by calling transferOwnership() or renounce the owner (i.e. set to 0x0) by calling renounceOwnership().
The onlyOwner modifier reverts the transaction if it's not sent by the current owner. (see the code)
So you need to call the mintNFT() function from the same address that deployed the contract, because that's the current owner. Or you can change the owner first by calling transferOwnership() (from the current owner address).
Removing the onlyOwner modifier from the mintNFT() function would allow anyone to call the function.

Answer 2

Answering this for anyone else who stumbles across the issue while using the Alchemy tutorial:
In the tutorial, it says to init the contract in your mint method like this:
const contract = require("../artifacts/contracts/MyNFT.sol/MyNFT.json");
const contractAddress = "0x81c587EB0fE773404c42c1d2666b5f557C470eED";
const nftContract = new web3.eth.Contract(contract.abi, contractAddress);
However, if you attempt to call estimateGas() or encodeABI() it will fail with the onlyOwner error.
The solution is to change the third line to:
const nftContract = new web3.eth.Contract(contract.abi, contractAddress, {
from: PUBLIC_KEY
});
This will set a default value of "From" so that when you call estimateGas() on a mint function marked onlyOwner, it will be able to use that from field to see that its the owner calling the estimateGas.
Took forever to figure this out.

Answer 3

I finally figured it out, the contract does not initialize the way I deploy it. So you have to initialize it after deployment.