BUG FOUND!! in Airport Disk programming

Question

Level 1

10 points

BUG FOUND!! in Airport Disk programming

I'm betting this is having a bigger issue then most poeple realize as it effects reconnecting to the Airport disk.

Ok after lots of testing I've figured out a major bug in the Airport Disk Programming for Security.

This has only been verified with the following settings:

1. Airport Disk is configured with Accounts for access
2. Formatted with HFS+ USB drive.

Discription:

1. When connecting to the Airport Disk you get the error:

"Connection Failed
Unknown user, incorrect password, or login is disabled. Please retype the login information or contact the disk's administrator."

2. You retype the password and user name and it still says the same thing over and over and over.

The Cause of problem:
You connect to your Airport Disk the first time with no problem using your login and password. If you cause your connection to be interrupted for a small amount of time and you get that Warning about server disconnect and it shows your airport disk and personal disk with the disconnect button, and they disconnect!! Then you cannot reconnect to the Airport Disk till you reset the Airport Extreme.

To get this Disconnect dialog, it can be caused by a number of common uses, here are a few of the common ones:

1. you VPN into work (with Airport Disk shares mounted)
2. you change from wireless to Hardwired connection (with Airport Disk shares mounted)
3. You let your computer go to sleep when its on a wireless connection but are connected through another wireless access point hardwired to the network (with Airport Disk shares mounted)

When getting your Airport Disk volumes disconnected in this way, The Airport Extreme I'm guessing is deactivating the account and not properly disconnecting the connection. So at this point you have to Reboot the Airport Extreme to let you use your account again on the Airport Disk.

I hope some poeple from Apple actually read these. I've had to reset my Airport extreme about 24 times a day between my wife's 15" MBP and my 17" SR MBP getting this disconnect problem.

And for those poeple out there who keep having Airport Disk connection problems, Lets make sure your not having this problem. To test, simply reboot the airport extreme router & see if you can connect to your Airport Disk Volumes, then once your volumes are mounted turn off your Airport wireless (on your MAC) or unplug your Hardwire till you get the disconnect message. Then try to reconnect to your Airport Volumes after restoring your network connection.

This issue needs to be fixed ASAP!!!!
Please reply to this message with your nominations to try and get this issues raised to a P1 or lvl 1 priority so it's in the next firmware upgrade as it's not an issue with OS x programming side, as a rebot of the computer still doesn't restore the connectivity with the AirPort Disk.

17" 2.4Ghz MBP; 12" G4iBook 1.33ghz; 15" MacBookPro 2.16ghz, Mac OS X (10.4.10)

Posted on Aug 29, 2007 5:02 PM

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Answer 1

Aug 29, 2007 5:11 PM in response to z1ross

I had this problem when I first got my AEBSn in the early spring. But somewhere along the way, one of the updates fixed it.
today's firmware update has had the effect of making the problem return.
Even when I reboot the extreme and all of the machines, the air Disk is seen but will not mount.

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Answer 2

Aug 29, 2007 8:54 PM in response to Robert Barnett

With the new firmware today I was having the same problem, but using the base station password, where the Airport would not accept my password. I deleted the following file and everything is back to normal.

try trashing the AirPort Utility Preferences at
/Yourusername/Library/Preferences/com.apple.airport.airportutility.plist

Steve

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Answer 3

z1ross Author

Level 1

10 points

Aug 29, 2007 9:24 PM in response to z1ross

Hello, This issue looks to have been resolved with Todays update. I just updated the Airport Extreme firmware and Ran a few tests. Looks like the issue has been resolved. I'm going to leave this with a current status of Pending. I'll mark it as resolved in 24rs to see if this is truly resolved.

Thank you.

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Answer 4

Aug 29, 2007 9:31 PM in response to z1ross

Same here. Can't connect since the upgrade.

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Answer 5

bdsca

Level 1

0 points

Aug 30, 2007 7:52 AM in response to adamselzer

I discovered this problem when power was disconnected from my AirPort extreme. My AirPort extreme does see the USB drive connection but I cannot mount the disk.

1) I have security disabled i.e. Guests can read/write.

2) Restarting Airport does not solve problem. Neither does these combinations:
a) usb disk drive on, restart airport.
b) usb disk drive off, restart airport, usb disk drive on.
c) airport on, usb drive off, usb drive on.
d) airport on, usb drive on, disconnect usb cable, reconnect usb cable.
etc... Believe me that I tried everything.

The issue is with mounting the drive. The only solution that has worked for me is to plug the USB disk directly to my computer and mounting it. Then I umounted and unplugged from computer. Re-attached drive to Airport Extreme. Used Airport disk utility to mount USB drive. Everything OK.

I'm sure the issue isn't with the USB disk drive. I'm using a G-Drive Q.

I just updated the firmware on my Airport Extreme to version 7.2.1. Still problem persists.

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Answer 6

Aug 30, 2007 8:09 AM in response to bdsca

I've got what appears to be the same problem. Tried everything I could find here even remotely related to an Airdisk problem (see my separate thread). It boils down to what you say ... when Airdisk disconnects, I cannot re-mount unless I first plug into computer and use disk utility to unmount. I've tried with two separate drives so I agree it must be the AE. I haven't applied 7.2.1 yet .. just found out this morning and had high hopes problem would be fixed tonight after this patch. However I have read about people having to apply 7.2.1 more than once for it to 'stick'. Have you tried re-applying it ?

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Answer 7

bdsca

Level 1

0 points

Aug 30, 2007 11:28 AM in response to danielcarrier

Installed the firmware 2 times. Still doesn't work. This is a big disappointment because the primary reason I bought the Airport Extreme was for a simple way to add a network drive. Right now I have the USB drive attached to my computer and its working fine.

Message was edited by: bdsca

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Answer 8

Aug 30, 2007 11:29 AM in response to bdsca

The only solution that has worked for me is to plug the USB disk directly to my computer and mounting it. Then I umounted and unplugged from computer. Re-attached drive to Airport Extreme.

That's the only simple method I've found too. Thanks for the tip. Hopefully this is an issue which can be easily fixed.

I'd recommend calling it in to Apple or filing a bug report - Apple engineers won't automatically pick it up from these forums.

Cheers.

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Answer 9

Aug 30, 2007 6:40 PM in response to bdsca

There's hope yet. I installed the firmware update to 7.2.1 and then tried to provoke misbehavior without success. I have put the MBP into sleep without first dismounting, I have shut down the MBP airport and then restarted ... Airdisk present before, and after the manoeuvre whereas yesterday any one of these required AE power-cycling + plugging drive into MBP to mount & dismount in order to resolve. Using both the "Go" or the disk utility method works equally well to mount the airdisk. I occasionally got a missing drive error message from disk utility when trying to reconnect, but can recover from this by simply restarting the AE from the airport utility.

So it isn't flawless yet ... but a definite improvement and step in the right direction ... at least at my end.

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Answer 10

Aug 31, 2007 2:50 AM in response to z1ross

HERES A SOLUTION I POSTED IN ANOTHER THREAD!

Hi,

I've been trying to work out the Hard Drive problems with the Airport Extreme for a few days and have had some success, so I'll share the info if its any use!

First of all, your printer and both hard drives all run off their own power supply, therefore, you don't need to have a powered usb hub, or just take the plug out and keep using the hub, save yourself a plug!

More importantly, I have had the same thing with the hard drive appearing in the Airport Utility yet whenever I try to connect, it comes up with an error and can't mount, although when I go to network and connect it appears but then goes wrong at the last part mounting, this is what I found...

the first time I plugged hard drive in all worked nicely, however, any time I have unplugged the power to the Aiport Extreme and connected again it'll show but never connect. When I went to make a few partitions I realised that if you unplug the router and repower, whatever HD name its seen before doesn't work until the HD name was changed again. For example....

I called my first HD to connect 'wifiHD', was working fine, next time i unplugged router was still showing in network but I couldn't mount it, I then plugged it to the mac and renamed it 'wifiDISK' for example and plugged it back into the router and it worked fine! Its very strange cos when I needed to unplug it last time I then had the same trouble and just renamed it back to 'wifiHD' it worked fine! Its a little flaw which is a right bugger to find so the bottom line is...

RENAME THE HARD DRIVE EVERY TIME YOU UNPLUG THE ROUTER AND YOU CAN MOUNT IT AGAIN

Another tip is format your HD in 'Mas OSX Extended' as it can be read by both mac and PC over the network. Then as windows isn't the best when you go to 'My Network Places' and 'Add Network Place' if you can't find the HD or even the router then enter

\\routername\\hardrivename\

in this format into the box, it'll take a mo but it'll then ask for the password! I personally have my hard drive guest access read + write so I entered

user: guest
password: base station password (or disk password as selected in airport utility)

and it all worked! 🙂

Sorry for the long explanation, hope this has helped!

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Answer 11

konggg

Level 1

9 points

Sep 3, 2007 9:50 PM in response to z1ross

I'm having the same problem too. Worked great the first time, now refuses to mount. This is definitely buggy and not what we expect from Apple. They have got to fix this before they bring out Leopard and Time Machine.

While I had some success in renaming the HD each time as above, I think for the time being I'm just going to manually connect the HD directly to my laptop whenever I want to back up.

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Answer 12

Sep 4, 2007 1:51 AM in response to z1ross

I started having this issue right after the firmware update 7.2.1
I went back to the firmware update 7.1.1 and all is fine now my airport disks are working normal

to change the firmware update go to
Airport utility
select manual setup
go to summary
go to version and change it to 7.1.1

Message was edited by: Jason Bousselaire

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Answer 13

stbo

Level 1

0 points

Sep 4, 2007 5:09 AM in response to Jason Bousselaire

What an extremely stupid bug. If the new firmware really is the cause, then I really wonder what Apple is doing. Probably no time anymore for bugs. All busy with phones and stuff.

Problem is I can revert to firmware 7.1.1. Just bought my Extreme, so the earliest firmware I can downgrade to is 7.2, and it doesn't help as far as I can see.

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Answer 14

Sep 4, 2007 11:35 AM in response to z1ross

I was experiencing the same problem after the upgrade to 7.2.1. Reverting to 7.1.1 solved it and allowed our users to connect again. I'm really surprised Apple had not discovered this bug before releasing the new firmware.

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Answer 15

stbo

Level 1

0 points

Sep 4, 2007 11:37 AM in response to Mark Anderson19

But does anyone know where one can find 7.1.1. ? I only get the option to revert to 7.2. in the Airport Utility since I have just bought the thing.

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