Airport Express Mysteriously Disconnects and Requires a Restart

What! You can't write that something *****? As in, s-u-c-k-s? I'm inclined to produce a string of profanity here but I'll restrain myself.

Wow, even though it lasted a few whole days on that, I reprogrammed it (just changed a small non-related parameter) and now the magic is gone, and it drops out again..... so far for this workaround. Back to square one. Sigh.

possible solution: i've followed the descriptions here: http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306879 and now i have no more connection drops.

just try, it seems to work

That's a good technique for clearing a computer-based Airport issue but it does not work to correct airport "base station" issues (unfortunately).

I am inclined to agree with you and especially the need to express in profane terms my disgust with Apple "tech support". They have put me through all kinds of hoops for a solid 24 hours now. They have actually told me that these are supposed to drop out of sight in Airport Utility but that they are still working. This is an outright lie. If iTunes can't see it and the printer vanishes and no data is moving in or out, it's not part of the network.

What gets to me is that I have two of these which worked perfectly and went through the Leopard upgrade perfectly but a new unit is a mess. The only way Apple will correct this is if enough people scream at them until they take the problem seriously. It took me a full day and I don't know how many hours on the phone to get this upgraded to a defect, return for credit. It should not be this difficult and this really puts a damper on my enthusiasm for Apple. This reminds me of dealing with Windows products.

Seems like I'm in the same boat as everyone here. I have two AirPort Expresses working together to make a WDS network. They use a WEP password and an access control list to keep the neighbors out. The Express connected to my generic router (doesn't matter which one I try) is the one that randomly locks me out. I get a Wi-Fi signal from it, and the light is a health green, but it will not let me back on its network unless I power it down. Wish I could check its log file, but of course I'm lock out from that. And as soon as I unplug it that file is history.

We better come up with some solution though. As long time Apple Discussions users will know: this is their blind spot.

P.S.: This is definitely not an problem with our computers. My DS lite, PS3, PSP, and iPod touch all get the same treatment when my Express acts up.

Message was edited by: hagridore

You just helped us eliminate another theory, that of switching to the lower WEP security somehow making these things work. I got my troublesome 3rd AX unit to hang on line for hours again yesterday by putting it in the same room with the Airport Extreme base station but by this morning it had dropped off the network again. Before I unplugged it, I started a Sony VAIO and looked at the network with Airport Utility in Windows and it is just gone, so we can also eliminate the theory that Leopard is to blame. That is far-fetched anyway, but we can now eliminate it.

This is coming down not to OS or the computer of choice or generation of OS or even the Express firmware. It is a hardware bug in the Express design. The factory in China which builds the things is either using flaky components or there is a flaw in the manufacturing process. At any rate, this is an Express problem which Apple is trying to cover up while irritating the consumer.

I got some help from the Phoenix Apple store yesterday but only after spending the whole day on the phone with Applecare playing their stupid games over and over again. The store told me to take it back to them and they would take care of it. So back it goes. I just wish Apple would read this site because there are at least 20 threads dedicated to this same, exact problem from Mac and Windows users alike. This is now a "do not buy" product for me and that's a shame, but actually lysing to customers by saying that it is working when it clearly is not, is not the right thing for Apple do do. If this had been my first experience with Apple, I would have run to Dell or HP after this.

The best thing we can do is keep the issue alive and make Apple eat these defective units until they realize they have a problem and that the problem is not the user base.

Ditto..!

Apple! are you getting this?

I'm on my 3rd replacement now and still no joy for longer than 30secs before it starts stuttering.
My first AX shorted out a year after purchase.. days after warranty expiration, so my patience is wearing rather thin. I'm guessing I've spent 5 days just trying stuff out to get it working properly. Apple.. your using up peoples lives! Work it out..

Glad I could help narrow the field. I just wish I could ditch my troublesome little white bricks. The problem is I am a big fan of AirTunes; an Express only feature.

I think you folks having this problem may have found a run of bad units, or else an incompatibility with newer AEBSs. I have my old AX (purchased shortly after the AX was first announced) as a WDS node with an old 802.11g AEBS as the master, and I do not experience the problems described here.

So the problem in debugging this thing, inasfar possible, is that the AX will stay connected for any length of time, from a few minutes to as longs as many hours, sometimes even a day. This will make people think that flipping switch X solved it, but trying a lot things for weeks now, I've come to the belief that none of the fiddling mentioned in this thread, ranging from shift-boots via firmware 'toggles' to changing from WPA to WPA2, actually solves the problem (as seen by the many "double-take messages", as in: 'yay, this fixes it', followed by a 'shoot, I take that back').

Collecting more data might give us hints. Some possibly relevant stuff:
* All cases in this thread that have 'the' problem (not some other of the semi-related stuff) have an AX that continues to have a green light instead of blinking amber, even though the connection is lost (correct me if I'm wrong). This is important information and points a blaming finger at the AX itself, either its hardware or its software.
* My router is a Speedtouch 780. Now using WPA2 + AES -- with which AX is supposed to play nice. Telnetting into the config part of the router shows a rekeying interval of 0 (which is normal for this type).
* I'm running Leopard. However as noted somewhere else, I don't have the impression that it's OS-related.

Anyone else have metrics that might help us, or, if the heavens are listening, inform some Apple engineers that are by now of course working day and night to solve this blindingly obvious mistake?

Been trying it all too.

This problem started a few weeks ago, I upgraded to Leopard today and its still persistent. So I would conclude that its OS unrelated also.
My girlfriends ibook appears to be unaffected, which confuses things somewhat.

I've been having to do Hardware resets every day or two to keep it online at all. Airtunes is constantly patchy regardless. When the unit is online I can peak at my full broadband capacity at times, but spend most of the time around 2-3% of it with the occasional spike, in-between the periods where it intermittently drops offline altogether and i need to reselect the network.

Message was edited by: Sentient Sprocket

Add me to the list. I have had the original saucer airport since it was first available. I bought two expresses when they first were available and they worked fine. I upgraded to the new extreme base station when it first came out and my expresses worked fine with it. Then I broke one of the expresses and bought a new one to replce it and my troubles started.

I have an extreme base station to an express relay/remote to an express remote (the new troublesome one). I spent about 6 hours on the phone with apple and finally got the remote new express to work. The next morning it was blinking amber. My laptop could not get connected to internet but the wireless symbol had a full fan. I reset the cable modem and extreme and everything worked with a good internet connection through the remote. The next morning: you guessed it - flashing amber, full fan, no internet connection. The same thing happens every morning.

Where is the big apple in the sky when we faithful followers need him/her?

Just wanted to add my name to the list. Every morning when I wake up, the APX base station is dead. Gotta walk over there and unplug it. I am running 10.5.1 and WEP. The weird thing is that this unit is probably close to 2 yr old and this behavior just started in the last few months some time. Based on that, I reject the idea that the problem stems from a bad batch at the manufacturer. What is going on, I'm not sure but it sure is annoying.

Thanks SQLGeek for the root cause. I've also set the timer to 9999 seconds on my router and to be honest, it's better than nothing!!