Airport Extreme (802.11n) - Connection drops (no auto-reset)

Hi all, I have a fast ethernet AEBS80211n about a year old now and thought it had died because of the drop outs but now realise lots are having this problem. The packets are being sent to the base station as requested but they just dont get forwarded. Restarting it only helps for an hour or so and it seems to sometimes flood my other switch sometimes.

Did anyone actually find a way to fix it and are there similar problems with the new Time Capsule?

Thanks Nick

I just downloaded and installed a bunch of updates today... Two were of interest: Airport Utility and Airport Base Station.

I smiled, and turned on my Windows XP computer, so I could test the network connection once the updates were installed on the iMac.

So far, the news looks good. I have checked several times, and I can still see the Windows XP computer on the Network.

I will remain cautiously optimistic.... If it is still there by this evening, then I will think it's been fixed.

Even if it's fixed, it's a Day Late and a Dollar Short. I've already removed the USB drive from my AEBS, since it stopped working reliably.

It would take several hours of work to move things around, remove the drive from my Windows XP computer, and install it on the Mac's AEBS. I have better things to do with my time.

Besides, I'd still need to buy another hard drive for the XP Computer... since I'd be removing the 500GB external hard drive it's using now.

s0cky wrote:
Hi all, I have a fast ethernet AEBS80211n about a year old now and thought it had died because of the drop outs but now realise lots are having this problem. The packets are being sent to the base station as requested but they just dont get forwarded. Restarting it only helps for an hour or so and it seems to sometimes flood my other switch sometimes.

Did anyone actually find a way to fix it and are there similar problems with the new Time Capsule?

Thanks Nick

The unplug/plug routine gets you service, but that solution has variable efficacy. It seems that when the problem is triggered, it does damage to the firmware that makes it more and more unstable. You have to re-install the firmware. Some are saying it's "downgrading" some "upgrading" in reality it's ANYgrading, just the reinstall that gets you back to normal.

Second. Burn Azureus. Don't allow it in your building, ever. Transmission is safe for bittorrent sharing.

With those two rules, my setup is very stable (knocking on wood) YMMV, of course.

ayi,
I've been having problems staying connected to the internet because of networks dropping. I noticed one morning that I had no bars in my Airport icon, so I turned the base station off for the day. I turned it back on, but I still had no internet connectivity. I share a household with a PC and we have the same internet provider, that being AT&T. The PC was also unable to connect to the internet, and I know of another person with a PC and AT&T and it was no dice for them on the internet connectivity thing too.
....
judging by how many other people are having this problem, though, I'm thinking it may not just be AT&T's fault?

I'm so grateful to have a mac, though, because I get a list of all of the other networks in my relative area that work so I can switch to a different network if I'm lucky, but lately I haven't even been able to join those.
Could it just be my internet provider, though?

I hve 2 PCs, and a Mac, and use Verizon DSL. All computers have always connected to the internet just fine.

Here's a fix that worked for me. Revert to 7.2 firmware.
My settings are,
ipv6 set link to local
dhcp set to 9999 days lease. I only have 20 computers so not really a problem for me.
Airport extreme and air disk is working for 2 weeks without any problems.

Me, also using 7.2 firmware,

just 4 macs, 2 PB G4s, AppleTV, iPhone,
all works flawlessly, oh, and yes iTunes runs flawless,
uploading a 1.2gb movie to AppleTV in just 5 minutes...
iMac and AppleTV both on "n"...

check and see if incoming modem has any firmware updates - ++step 1++

*re-apply, down grade the original firmware:*
Downgrading firmware If you experience dire issues after udpating to AirPort Extreme Base Station 802.11n Firmware 7.2.1,

you can downgrade to version 7.2 via the following process:

* Launch AirPort Utility (in /Applications/Utilities)
* Select your Base station from the left-hand pane
* Click "Manual Setup"
* Select "Upload Firmware" from the Base Station pull-down menu (Leopard)
* Choose version 7.2 from the "Upload Version" menu
* Click OK

Thanks for the tips guys I downgraded to firmware 7.1.1 as 7.2 wasn't in the airport utility list and I couldn't find it anywhere. Good news everything is back to normal and its much more responsive 🙂

Come on Apple give us some decent firmware with support for TimeMachine too!

Well it looks like i came to the right place.
Mine just started to act up, and the problem started with the new firmware.
I will lose my connection every 4-5 hours and it just drops the network. Now, I have a lot of
faith in Apple to get this thing fixed but its taking way to long for them and I do not have the time
so apple until you get this fixed I will just use a cat 6 line to my imac.
Or can someone help me with this problem?

New Airport update today. Let's hear how it does everyone. Hopefully this is "it"

http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/timemachineandairportupdatesv10.html

mine still does it, even more often now since i am doing a time machine sync

I've had this problem for about 3 or 4 months, and it appears - fingers crossed - to have been fixed by 7.3.1.

This problem only seems to affect base stations where Channel=Automatic.

This means all 5Ghz connections are affected.
The dropping started with Mac OS 10.5.2 - Which makes me certain it has nothing to do with the base station firmware at all. It's the Mac that is dropping the connection.

Since the WiFi/TimeMachine update, my Mac Pro dropped the connection once. It always seems to happen during a file transfer.

Glyn Williams1 wrote:

The dropping started with Mac OS 10.5.2 - Which makes me certain it has nothing to do with the base station firmware at all. It's the Mac that is dropping the connection.

When the problem occurs, ALL macs are frozen out, so while it may originate in a mac, the kaboom is in the base station.

Nope. Not for me.

My Mac Pro drops the connection all on its own. Other machines keep on running fine with no service interruption.

So whatever you are seeing and whatever I am seeing is different.