topic AP Heartbeat packets to the WLC in Wireless

AP Heartbeat packets to the WLC

Mitrixsen — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 13:18:24 GMT

Hello, everyone.

To keep the question short, an AP will periodically send heartbeat messages every 30 seconds to the WLC it associated to in order to determine whether its still alive and kicking. Here is where my confusion comes:

Official Cert Guide for ENCOR
If a keepalive is not answered, an AP escalates the test by sending four more keepalives at 3-second intervals

31 Days Before your ENCOR exam
Whenever one heartbeat ACK from the controller is missed, the AP resends the heartbeat up to five times at 1-second intervals

Which one is true here? 1 keepalive every second (up to 5 times) or 1 keepalive every 3 seconds (up to 4 times)?

Thank you
David

Re: AP Heartbeat packets to the WLC

MHM Cisco World — Thu, 03 Jul 2025 13:23:43 GMT

This defualt change from one plat to other.

In end keepalive is send for specific intervals if there is no answer it start fastly send keepalive before it declare WLC is dead

MHM

Re: AP Heartbeat packets to the WLC

Rich R — Sat, 05 Jul 2025 13:35:48 GMT

@Mitrixsen It depends - you have not specified WLC platform/OS:
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/8-10/config-guide/b_cg810/ap_connectivity_to_cisco_wlc.html#ID2881

https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/wireless/controller/9800/17-15/config-guide/b_wl_17_15_cg/m_config_model.html#config-ap-profile-gui
Defaults not stated - you'd have to check running config (all) with defaults configured.