Airport Utility can't find base station

I feel like I must be missing something very obvious. But my Airport Utility can't find any base stations, even though I am successfully connected to this network, the base station is about three feet away from the computer, and Internet Connect has no trouble finding it and specifiying the base station's id.

I have just done a wipe-and-install of my whole computer; I've reinstalled all software from CDs or installers, and this utility wanted to upgrade to version 5.2.1 (it says Disk Version 2.0 on the disk) before running, so I did that. And no base station detected, despite rebooting the computer, and rescanning any number of times. I'm using OS 10.4.6.

What can I do?

Message was edited by: Paul-ny

PowerBook G4-800

Posted on Nov 16, 2007 2:54 PM

Reply
6 replies

Nov 16, 2007 3:07 PM in response to Paul-ny

Yeah this happened to me too, except my computer was 0.5 feet away from my AirPort Extreme. Take a look at your router (the one that your ISP provided). Yank the power cord of both the router and Airport Extreme shut them off for 10 seconds. First plug the router one back in then the Airport Extreme. Then use Airport Utility to look for it.

Nov 19, 2007 11:12 AM in response to Paul-ny

There is something puzzling that bothers me, even though I have things working again.

I first lost access to the AEBS when I tried to use Airport Utility to change the security setting of my network. It has been on the default WPA2 setting, and I was wanting to downgrade that to WEP because the long WPA password was too long to be accepted by my Palm TX Wifi software. But the shorter WEP password shouldn't have been a problem. At the time, after my system reinstall, the utility and the base station seemed to be working all right.

When I completed resetting the base station with WEP, though, there was an error message, after which I could no longer connect to the network with my laptop (using the old password or the new password), and then the utility lost sight of the base station as well. I had to do a hard reset and start over. When I did the same thing again, the same thing happened. When I reconfigured the base station with the WPA2 security, though, it all worked, and my laptop could get back online.

At this point I tried changing it again to WEP, and the same problem recurred. One last time with WPA2, and that's where I am now, except that I was pleased to find that my PDA, which had just been replaced under warranty, has some newer software in it and it now can accept my passkey (?)-- my airport code rather than the 64(?)-digit number version of it, so it's working, too.

But apparently Airport Utility has lost sight of the base station again. I don't need it for anything, but this is annoying. What's more curious, though, is what was happening when I chose WEP security.

Nov 25, 2007 9:10 AM in response to Paul-ny

that is interesting, did you happen to have anything plugged into the AEBSn when you were configuing the device? i had a configuration error that took me two days to figure out, if i had anything in the switch then unit would fail/bomb on finishing any configuration and would just blick amber....

another note with the WPA2 setting you can create a "secret key" that allows access to such devices so you don't have to enter the 63 digit key into a host...just a thought?!

glad to see everyhthing is working!

This thread has been closed by the system or the community team. You may vote for any posts you find helpful, or search the Community for additional answers.

Airport Utility can't find base station

Welcome to Apple Support Community
A forum where Apple customers help each other with their products. Get started with your Apple Account.