Q: DHCP conflicts between AppleTV and Airport Extreme repeater
I have an 2013 Airport Extreme access point (in bridge mode) connected to my Internet router using a cable. I also connected my AppleTV to the same Airport Extreme using a cable. Additionally, I have an (older, 2010 or so) Airport Extreme as a wireless repeater to extend my Wi-Fi. All components are set to get an IP address via DHCP which is provided by my (Meraki) router.
All components are running most recent firmware versions and setup correctly for this setup.
The issue I have is that the AppleTV and the (old) Airport Extreme repeater are constantly causing DHCP conflicts: they both get the same IP lease everytime the DHCP is refreshed (which, for testing purposes due to this issue is now 1 hour).
Now I did quite some testing and it's not to blame to the router (used a Juniper and a Draytek with the same effect), so I suspect the issue to be in the way the (2013) Airport Extreme forwards DHCP requests onto the network.
Is this a known issue and if so, is there a way to get it sorted out (without using quickfixes like connecting the AppleTV via Wi-Fi instead of cable)?
AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Gen)
Posted on Mar 19, 2014 3:12 AM
These issues may be caused by the Bonjour Sleep Proxy service.
It works by having an online device (like the Airport Extreme) respond to queries for a device that has gone to sleep (like the Apple TV). This will cause the MAC address for the Apple TV to appear to have changed.
I was having a similar issue -- IP address switching back and forth between the MAC address for the Apple TV and the Airport Extreme. It persisted even when I gave the Apple TV a static IP. My FreeBSD DHCP server kept logging the Apple TV's static IP address going back and forth between the Apple TV and the Airport Extreme.
This thread may shed more light on the subject:
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=1152585
I alleviated the problem to some extent by configuring the Apple TV to never go to sleep. So it never needs to register with the sleep proxy service. But I still see it when other devices (e.g. MacBook Pro) go to sleep.
One of the problems that cropped up when this was happening with the Apple TV was that the Apple Airport Utility wasn't able to see either of my two Airport Extreme routers at times, despite the fact that my connection to the internet and all other internal machines worked properly. Keeping the Apple TV from sleeping seems to have helped. We'll see if it crops up again.
Posted on Mar 31, 2014 9:34 AM