Airport Express Mysteriously Disconnects and Requires a Restart

I'm having the same problem! I've been having the same consistent problem, and was able to "kinda" fix it by resetting it and everything, and then giving it a password (UGH had to this like every 2 weeks..). Now my Airport Express won't even stay connected for more than 10 seconds so i keep getting the "an error has occurred" message. APPLE PLEASE RESPOND TO US!! Do something!!

OK, same problem here, but I'm using two older (>3 years) AEX units:
LinkSys cable modem
LinkSys router
AEX (Base Station mode w/ USB printer connected)
AEX (Broadcast/signal boost mode)
WEP 128 bit encryption
AirTunes set up on both AEX with remote speakers

This setup has been working nearly flawlessly for three years since I switched to a Mac. I even upgraded to Leopard on day three of its release and it's been working fine since then. I came back from a brief vacation this week to find no internet connection (though my VOIP phone through Vonage was working fine). Airport Utility can't see the units. Unplugging and restarting each AEX gets it going again, but only for a few hours at a time. I'm on the Channel 11 fix right now to see how it works (fingers crossed).

The only thing I can think of is the security update I downloaded last week...

I've been contending with this as well.

@home it's begun happening over the past month or so. We have 2 iMac G5s, my Macbook and my iPhone. The connection drops and we'll either turn off AirPort on our computers and turn it back on to reconnect, or unplug and plug in the AirPort. Annoying. That AirPort Express is 2 years old.

For the past few months in my office -- brand new AirPort Express -- I've had intermittent dropped signals, but worse is AirTunes. It'll work for a few hours and then start cutting out. It'll even cause iTunes to pause or hang. Sometimes after a reboot of my Macbook it'll start this immediately.

I have tweaked the **** out of my office AirPort Express. Both in the office and at home I've got the AirPort Express set to only recognize our mac addresses. Both are using WEP. Both have WDS turned off. I've turned on Interference Robustness. I've had the stream buffer in iTunes set to small, medium and large.

These things are driving me crazy and killing my productivity. Nothing has changed. There hasn't been a recent firmware update.

Message was edited by: circa1977

I've just recently bought an AExp, new from ebay, cost £35 and I thought I was getting a bargain. While waiting for it to arrive I started ploughing through this thread and began to have serious worries.
Anyway, my reason for posting is to let you know how I have it set up and my experience so far in the hope it may help others.

My set up was a Netgear DG834PN wireless/ADSLmodem/router with a couple of Netgear WG602s set up as repeaters to extend range across the house. I am using WPA-PSK security.
Even before the AExp arrived I was getting frequent dropped connections from the remote repeater which required power cycling to get it back on the network. After configuring the AExp, I just want it for Airtunes, it connected fine and did exactly what I was looking for. Then after about two hours the music stopped and the speaker name in iTunes had changed to the dreaded italics, ie, not there any more.

After a few tries with the same results, I decided to approach things differently. The first thing I did was go into the Airport utility and when I looked at the encryption settings the AExp was set to WPA/WPA2, which was the only WPA option when I set it up. But, I now had the option to change to WPA only which I did. This may be something that causes conflicts, I don't know.

However, what seems to have worked for me is bringing a couple of cheap homeplugs into the set up. One into the router, the other in the lounge with one of the WG602s plugged into it. The other WG602 on the router has been removed.

I then rebooted the AExp which connected straight away and so far it has stayed connected now for over three days.

I don't know if this will help anyone, but my AExp seems to be quite a recent model and would appear to be fine, so far! I'm just wondering if it's the AExps that are at fault or the WDS that is feeding them whether it be from an Apple router or one of the many third party devices so many of us use.

I know it shouldn't be this way but using a couple of homeplugs and an access point, which to all intents is plugged directly into the router has been the most stable way of extending my wireless signal and seems to work really well with the AExp.

I had lots of AX disconnects - seemingly at random. Sometimes ten minutes, sometimes three days. Then I changed the AX IP address from DCHP to manual. I have not had a disconnect since. Probably a month now. Used to take seven amber blinks to toggle to green. Now takes three. Never fails. Of course YMMV.

Tuck

Okay- my situation is even simpler than most. I'm running a two year old AX off an ethernet-connected linksys router. I've disabled ALL security. If my bandwidth gets too sucked up by freezone users, I disconnect. In reality, that seldom happens, even in the heart of San Francisco. Any serious use of sensitive information is handled through a hardwire CAT 5 cable.

Now, even though I have avoided going 10.5 until third party software WORKS, I'm getting constant disconnections. None of these problems used to exist with this setup, involving the same components. <edited out by Moderators>

hi all,

i've been having the same problem with my express units for several months and i've pretty much had it.

if anyone has returned a faulty unit for a new one and has seen the problem disappear, i'd love to hear the "all clear" signal so i can do the same. until then i'm reluctant to spend more $$$ on these things.

Interesting thaqt part of my post was edited out by moderators. This would seem proof that they are here.

Finally...
After talking quite a bit with Apple's tech support, they sent me yet another AX (the third one...). It took two weeks to get it, but now it's working fine. It's extending my network perfectly (WDS and WPA2 personal) and Airtunes works fine.
It's been working perfectly for 48 hours now. Let's see how long the miracle will last...

Did it work?
I have the same problems as above. Can't keep on the network. Restart. Repeat.
Sent it back. They overnighted a replacement.
This one cannot be seen by the network at all. Blinking amber light.
Called, went through the BS and they are overnighting a third.
If this does not work it is refund time.
I think they have a batch of bad hardware.
If I get the refund I will wait for a while and see if they get the problem resolved before another purchase.
Problem is I really want one! I bought it as an iTune stream to my living room. The five minutes it worked was great.

Message was edited by: ravnhaus

OK, seriously noob question here...but after 2 days of trying and FINALLY getting my AX to stream music, it stopped working after about 1 hour...my question:

How do I change my security settings and/or my key renewal interval?

I have no idea how to even access my router (NETGEAR) to do this on my computer...any help greatly appreciated. Cheers.

Okay, I got it.

After going through all of the same issues as everyone else, here's how I have it set up.

Only using to stream music

No password or security

It has worked perfectly as long as I don't use Itunes!

I am streaming Pandora using Airfoil.

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/airfoil/mac/

It costs $25

Next, I will try Windows Media Player.

J

Hi Richard,

If you read this post, I am having some problems with 6.3 and wondered if you
have fw 6.2 still hanging around?

If so could you email it?

Thanks for your help

Bob