How to reset your Ekahau visualizations (and why you might
want to check them)
Eighteen months ago I was asked to give a ballpark number of
access points for a small campus of buildings consisting of multiple floor
each. After a quick glance at the floor plans I knew I had to do some
sort of predictive design in order to get a ballpark number, and luckily some
produced some CAD files.
I created the project and went to site verify the walls were
accurately placed, marked off where I could not place access points, and went
back to my desk and created the model so I could give the project manager a
ballpark estimate.
Eighteen months later, I was asked to do the same thing
since the first project had not taken flight and this time the project manager
stated they needed a voice implementation. Probably a good thing the
first project didn’t get any traction since that design would not have worked
for VoWi-Fi.
When I opened the project up, I noticed something was
off. Note: if you are following along, I am using version 10.1
First of all, my signal strength is set to Primary.
Yes, the word “Primary” is not there, but it is implied. (to the best of my
knowledge, anyway) Notice the bottom middle AP does not have any heat map
around it? Neither does the AP in the middle. That was red flag #1.
I then turned my visualization to the 2.4 GHz, which I
usually do not pay that much attention to since I usually concentrate on 5 GHz
WLAN designs. Same thing – the middle AP doesn’t have any “heat” on the
heat map, and I didn’t turn any radios off yet.
Then I selected “Both”, and I now knew something was
wrong. If you look at the bottom middle AP in both visualizations above,
there is no green above the bottom row middle AP, yet there is in the “Both”
visualization. How can that be? If “Both” is both 2.4 GHz and 5GHz
painted on the monitor at the same time, how can I have green where there is
none on either of the last two visualizations?
When seeing this, I started questioning myself. I
started asking myself if I fully understood what exactly these views
meant. I asked multiple people who were all Ekahau Masters if their
visualizations were accurate, and they said they were. But they were not
looking at my project file. I honestly started doubting myself about my
knowledge of these visualizations, and then came to the conclusion that my
knowledge was accurate and there was either something wrong with my project
file or the software. Then I started checking other views within the
software – specifically the “Secondary Signal Strength” view.
Under this view, I selected two APs and the 2.5 GHz and came
up with something that I thought I might see in real life:
Then I selected 5 GHz and saw this view:
Then I did the unthinkable. I clicked on “Both”.
I rarely, if ever, use this view:
I thought to myself – WHAT? How can that be?
That is supposed to be where these two APs overlap each other with both bands
on – basically, a sum of the two graphics above it. This made absolutely
no sense to me! During all of this, I opened two support tickets with
Ekahau, but after a day of not hearing from anyone, I figured they were closed
due to a holiday that I am unaware of.
Then I selected one AP, kept it on Secondary, and selected
the 2.4 GHz visualization: (looks good)
Next I selected 5 GHz and didn’t see anything there either.
Again, looks good.
Then I selected Both, under Secondary, and the single AP:
That is not what I expected to see. Why? Because
from the Primary & Selected & 2.4 GHz, I don’t see anything on the heat
map:
Let’s look at the 5 GHz: (again, nothing)
Therefore, how could the Secondary Signal Strength &
Selected & Both with the single AP display anything?
Now I knew something wasn’t working properly. I went
back to Secondary Signal Strength & Selected & Both and looked at it
again:
I thought to myself, “The coverage area is too large”
and then I was reminded that when Secondary is selected in conjunction
with “Both” and only one AP is being selected, that “Both” will display the
area where both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz reside from that one AP.
That is not what I expected to see because, in theory, that
should be the same view as Signal Strength & Selected AP & Both, and
that same AP selected. And then I remembered I was on Secondary and it
was displaying out to -70. If we slide the Primary out to -70 and
compare, they should, in theory, be the same.
They look pretty close too me.
I have now come to the conclusion something is messed up
with either my project or the software. I asked several awesome Wi-Fi
Engineers (thank you, you know who you are) and I was informed that we
can “reset” the views within Ekahau Pro. I figured “what else have I got
to lose?”.
In order to do this, go to “View” in the bar across the
top. Scroll all the way to the bottom, and look for View Settings, then
Restore View Settings to Original Defaults:
I clicked through the “Are you sure” type of messages and 15
seconds later, my visualizations are all fixed. Here’s a re-graph of one
of the first heat maps in this post, and that is what I expected to see the
first time.
One thing is for sure – I am going to keep a closer eye on
my visualizations. I’m not exactly how the visualizations got “broken”,
but they did, and I am thinking about doing the reset on every file as a
preventive maintenance. And now you know how to fix it.
