How to reset your Ekahau visualizations (and why you might want to check them)

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.