Connection keeps dropping

Same problem! On two different locations, both Airport Extremes, a solid connection disconnects and "scanning"shows under the airport icon - airport isn't even in use!

Is it MobileMe related? Very annoying and no help from Applecare.

Seems that if I bring the MacBook Pro over to the Airport Extreme, it will reconnect - so it seems to be a problem with signal strength? I was originally only 20 feet away.

I've just started having this problem in the past few days with an AEBSn but not AEXn. The extreme is my router connected to a modem - it's worked flawlessly for about 6 months, now suddenly it's dropping out every few minutes and the internet is constantly reconnecting. The airport triangle remains on full signal and I've tried swapping channels to no avail. Whatever it is, my AEXn which gets it's connection from a Home Plug which in turn gets an IP address from AEBSn, is not having any of these issues if say I connect the MBP directly to it.

I'm having the same problem. I just recently bought my $200 Airport Extreme to replace my old $50 D-Link. I am disconnected randomly, several times a day, for no apparent reason. My router is only a few feet away, the light stays green and the Airport Utility reports "no problems". I have updated all the software for it. I am running 2 iMacs and 2 MBPs on it. In order to make it work properly, I basically just have to wait for it to come back up. Most of the time, (as other have reported), it simply isn't available to connect at all or the WEP key doesn't work and it "times out".

So far, it's a mess. And unless there is a solution soon, I have no problem re-connecting my D-Link router.

Same story here: iMac dropping connection every 10 to 15 minutes to an AirPort Extreme. The funny thing is that a Windows laptop has no such problem with it.

yea my connection keeps dropping and I tried to ask for help and the only thing I can do is freaking change the channel. Im playing poker online and I get in this huge pot in this big tournament and I get dropped, the connection goes in and out for like a min and then I lose it, I got sooo ****** out, these things are pieces of ****.

Same Frickin' problem here ever since I got the latest iMac last month, AIRPORT has a self-assigned IP address, or it asks for password and then time out, or it picks up the network then drops it shortly, or it just can't find the network altogether! My PS3 is constantly connected (& playing COD4 online :)) at the same time

It does this about once every other day randomly, while all other times, it works flawlessly. I know that this must be a very common problem, so APPLE needs to step up, this type of b.s. issue shouldn't even occur in 2008.

I've had many macs in the past, if they had airport issues, I was able to fix them. I've tried about everything (deleting preferences files, repair disk, restarting) to no avail. Software needs rewriting.

Message was edited by: jkdafijkp894ernqaefiojn

Have the same problem. Only been happening for about one month. Driving me crazy!

After some experimentation, it looks like the problem is with the iMac rather than the Airport hub. If I just turn Airport off on the iMac and turn it back on, I'm reconnected for another 10 or 15 minutes.

I've been having the same problem mentioned here and finally connected with a knowledgeable Apple representative who quickly zeroed in on a likely problem. I recently did an update of RealPlayer which includes the RealPlayer downloader application. Apparently this application causes a lot of connectivity interference. He instructed me to log in to System Preferences>Accounts>Login Items. Then we removed the downloader from the login item list. It's worked like a champ ever since.
Hope this helps someone besides me.

I have an Airport Extreme Base Station with n, but not the gigabit one. I had this problem about a month or two ago, took it into the Apple store and it was covered under the original warrantee (it is also covered if you have any extended apple care hardware - so they said), they reset it and it worked fine. I was lucky enough to have gotten a good rep, so he went ahead and ordered me a replacement (good thing as the orginal one worked for about 45 minutes when i got home from the store), it came in and worked fine for a month or more, but now it is doing the same **** thing, dropping the connection all the time all day long! I guess the cheap Linksys is going back into production! I would buy the gigabit Extreme router if i thought that the **** thing would last longer than an year? I have been very happy with all other Apple products, but this one is a real loser...

Airport Utility 5.3.2
Airport Extreme 7.3.2

Try Disk Utility/Repair Permissions. Then restart holding down the Command-Option-P-R keys - keep holding the keys down until you hear the startup chime a second time.

You may need to reselect your startup disk and reenter some preferences in your System Preferences after this procedure.

For those still having problems, here is something else to try:

User/<username>/Library/Preferences/com.apple.airport.airportutility.plist - delete this pref.

Root HR/Library/Preferences/SystemConfiguration/com.apple.airport.preferences.plist - copy this file to your desktop, then open the copy with TextEdit and delete everything after the first <dict> and before the last </dict>. Save the file on the desktop.
Now delete the file in the above SystemConfiguration folder - you will require administrator password.
Now copy the new file on your desktop to the SystemConfiguration folder - you will be asked to Authorise with your administrator password.

Now reboot and with a bit of luck, your problems will be over.

I am beginning to think that my problems were caused by migrating my applications from my old MBP to my new, as I notice that a number of preference files say the preference settings were migrated.

Did you try enabling interference robustness and/or switching to a lower multicast rate?

thanks for the tip, Kevin. Worked perfectly.

My wife's new MBP started dropping our AEB yesterday, then today it would not even see it. We have another MB that could see it just fine, so I knew it wasn't the base station.

Just FYI, the problem coincided with a network change: I went from the AEB running directly off a cable modem, to the AEB running off a router running off the modem. This forced a change in the AEB config to Bridge mode. Not sure if this was the culprit, just strange it didn't bother our MB (which is still running Tiger).