Airport Express on Existing Wireless Network (HELP!!)

Question

Airport Express on Existing Wireless Network (HELP!!)

I have a MacBook Pro 2.2GHz 4GB RAM running OS X 10.4.11.

I connect to the internet wirelessly using a Linksys WRT54G wireless router. I do not have -- nor have I ever had -- a problem connecting to the internet on my MacBook.

Today I bought an Airport Express 802.11n for the sole purpose of playing my iTunes music on my home stereo wirelessly from my MacBook.

I do not wish to replace my Linksys router; I want to use the Airport Express on my existing wireless network to stream my music.

However, no matter what I seem to do, I cannot get this set-up to work (and I am about to toss the Airport Express off my balcony). Perhaps some kind soul can lend me a hand...

When I plug in the Airport Express to the power and connect it to my stereo (using the Line Out port) the Airport Express flashes green once, then turns solid amber for 2+ minutes, then flashes amber continuously.

Then when I run the Airport Utility (that I installed from the CD that came with the Airport Express) it says "Discovering Apple Wireless Devices" and then after a few moments says "Airport Utility was unable to find any Apple wireless devices. Please make sure the Apple Wireless device you want to set up is plugged in and in range of your computer, and then click rescan to try again." I have clicked "Rescan" over and over and over again, but to no avail.

My laptop is right beside the Airport Express and the Linksys router, so that cannot be the problem.

I've tried repeatedly to reset the Airport Express (with a paperclip, both plugged-in and unplugged per the manual) but that does not seem to help at all.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get my MacBook to recognize the device and then configure it for use in my home?

Thank you very much, Scott

P.S. I have also upgraded the firmware on my Linksys router to the most up-to-date thinking that might have something to do with it, but apparently not.

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.4.11)

Posted on Apr 7, 2008 9:54 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

148,619 points

Apr 7, 2008 10:19 AM in response to singaporescott

Hello singaporescotty. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get my MacBook to recognize the device and then configure it for use in my home?

Either connect your MBP directly, using an Ethernet cable, to the 802.11n AirPort Express Base Station (AXn), or connect the AXn directly to the Linksys router, and then use the AirPort Utility to configure it. Once configured, you can place the AXn at its desired location.

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Answer 2

yoppdk

Level 1

0 points

Apr 7, 2008 10:20 AM in response to singaporescott

I was trying to do the same, although using an older graphite extreme model for internet connection. Bought the express for sending Itunes to stereo receiver. Same symptons ... yellow flashing light. I couldn't figure it out, but my son did - the express would not get the proper IP address, so he looked at the IP address for the extreme and manually set the IP address for the express based on that ... and we got the green light.

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Answer 3

Tahoe4me

Level 1

15 points

Apr 7, 2008 11:52 AM in response to Tesserax

Tesserax,
Forgive me for butting in to your thread but I'm having the very same set of circumstances (as are many others) and I really don't understand how to execute your solution:

+Either connect your MBP directly, using an Ethernet cable, to the 802.11n AirPort Express Base Station (AXn), or connect the AXn directly to the Linksys router, and then use the AirPort Utility to configure it.+

When I do either of these connections with an ethernet cable,nothing really changes. How should connecting the MBP to the AXn or the AXn to the router via the cable change anything in Airport Utility. At least for me it still searches for and doesn't find anything.
Can you give more detail on what and where I should be looking to reconfigure and/or revert back to version 7.3 as some others have suggested?
Thanks,

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Answer 4

Apr 7, 2008 4:38 PM in response to Tahoe4me

Hi Tesserax, thank you for your response. I tried doing as you suggested:

1) plugging AXn directly into my MBP using ethernet cable and then plugging AXn into wall and
2) plugging AXn into Linksys router using ethernet cable

Both times the "Airport Utility was [STILLL] unable to find any wireless devices"...

My wireless internet connection is working fine (I am typing this using it) so I am stumped.

yoppdk, can you shed some light on how your son was able to "manually set the IP address" on AX without it being recognized on the wireless network?

Thanks everyone, Scott

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Answer 5

Apr 7, 2008 5:06 PM in response to yoppdk

Hi Tesserax, thank you for your response. I tried doing as you suggested:

1) plugging AXn directly into my MBP using ethernet cable and then plugging AXn into wall and
2) plugging AXn into Linksys router using ethernet cable

Both times the "Airport Utility was STILLL unable to find any wireless devices"...

My wireless internet connection is working fine (I am typing this using it) so I am stumped.

yoppdk, can you shed some light on how your son was able to "manually set the IP address" on AX without it being recognized on the wireless network?

Thanks everyone, Scott

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Answer 6

yoppdk

Level 1

0 points

Apr 8, 2008 6:27 AM in response to singaporescott

I wish I was at my Mac now and I could tell you better, but I believe he entered the manual set up mode for the express through airport utility. On one of the pages (perhaps under the advanced tab?) you see the IP address ... you can click on IP address and it gives you the opportunity to set it manually. He found the proper IP address by checking the address listed for the older extreme unit, and used the same address for the express yet added a slightly different third set of numbers, such as xxx.xxx.200.

He saved a screenshot of that page for me, just in case I need to reset it again. If desired, I could send that snapshot to you later so you could see where the IP address was changed.

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Answer 7

Apr 8, 2008 7:15 AM in response to yoppdk

Thanks to everyone for their assistance. After more hours spent trying to get this working this morning -- plus an hour on the phone to Apple Assistance in Sydney -- it was determined that my AX was faulty. I took it back to Apple today, they replaced it, and when I plugged the new one in it was immediately recognized, easily configured and I am now streaming iTunes wirelessly to my stereo. I realize this doesn't really help anyone else's (similar) problems, but I thought I'd update you on mine. Thanks again.

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Answer 8

Tesserax

Level 10

148,619 points

Apr 8, 2008 7:34 AM in response to Tahoe4me

Hello Tahoe4me. Welcome to the Apple Discussions!

By connecting directly to the AX via Ethernet, the idea is to eliminate any issues with a wireless connection when performing base station administration with the the AirPort utilities.

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Answer 9

John Gee

Level 1

5 points

Apr 9, 2008 6:52 AM in response to singaporescott

I updated to 7.3.1, and just wasted 3 hours getting my Airport Express working again. What a nightmare.

Flashing amber light after update to 7.3.1 and not found by Airport Utility. Hard reset allows Airport Utility to find it, but after configuration never found again and get flashing amber light, until hard reset again...

Here are the steps that worked for me to get back to 7.3. and functional Airport Express.

1) I had ethernet connected, I was unclear whether ethernet doing anything but desperate. Performing reset from MacBook with airport on.
2) Hard reset on Airport Express so that Airport Utility can find it. (i.e. press reset button for 5-10 seconds until light flashes amber 4 times. The factory reset did not seem to work.)
3) Cross fingers that Airport Express shows up in Airport Utility. (Did most times for me, but not always.)
4) Hold down Option key and select Check for Updates from Airport Utility application menu. This allows selecting old updates.
5) Download 7.3.
6) Click Manual Setup (for the Airport Express)
7) Select Upload Firmware from the Base Station menu
8) Select 7.3, apply, cross fingers

After applying 7.3 may need to do one more hard reset, I am not sure if it showed up again on its own. However, once available in Airport Utility and once again with the 7.3 firmware, was able to configure and get working again as normal.

Apple link with tips for firmware and Airport Utility:
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1218

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Answer 10

Apr 30, 2008 5:47 PM in response to John Gee

John . . . I did the same thing. Brand new AXn, just plugged it in . . . and IMMEDIATELY had recognition/connection issues. I moved the location of the AX to see if it would help and oddly it did (still wasn't near bad equipment or metal - whatever).

Then things were going swimmingly in the setup process until BAM, I do what I thought was a good thing and I install 7.3.1.

Yeah, it's solid green light and not recognized at all, nor can I get into the menu by clicking "continue" or "manual setup". Oh, but I named it in the beginning of the process and it's still there, even after the factory restarts!

My question for you is: how do I reapply 7.3 if I dont have an Airport base? I don't even know if I can . . .

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