Airport Extreme/Express network - advice

It is important to get a grip on the network as a whole.

Your TG789 is your main router for your network.. since all the other units are bridged.. unless the airport express that you said is not in bridge is actually the main router.. that would be a very poor setup.

All airports in bridge mode except one airplay express units.

What mode is it in if not bridge.. ??

There are only 3 possible modes..

Off (bridge mode)

DHCP only

DHCP and NAT..

It has to be one of those.. and both the DHCP variations are incorrect. It would mean you have the main router and the Express fighting for DHCP.

I need more info to really help.

I need you to click on the icon of each airport and post the screenshot showing the actual IP addresses.. it is perfectly safe as they are all internal network IP.

Just like this example.. it really helps if you leave all the info there.. don't worry about the error .. this is old setup and I am having issues myself with airport utility at the moment. I think due to recent upgrade to IPv6.

What just caused this spontaneous rearrangement of the network?

It might well have another DHCP server running.. or it can be the TG789 is not bonjour aware.. or you have IPv6 set incorrectly.

NOTE in your computer unless you are using a full IPv6 from your ISP you should be setting IPv6 to link local only.. don't leave it on automatic.

Tell me if you ISP has updated to IPv6.. I have just updated btw .. I am with Aussie Broadband and their IPv6 service is causing me some issues around the network.

The airport utility does misbehave though.. as does the network under High Sierra and later.. so there can be lots of issues.

Looks amazing.

I have now connected two extremes and an express by cable to the access point.

By access point we normally mean a wireless access point.. (WAP) but I think you are meaning your main router.

So you have a wireless modem router? What make and model?

If what you are running now is stable that is fine.. and I presume the main router then has gigabit ports.. this is important to get best performance. Are you running main modem router's wireless or turned it off?

Sometimes it is better to run at least one of the airports as your main router.. if that is not possible then you can also use it with a slightly different setup as DHCP server without NAT.

I am guessing all of the airports are in bridge mode.. is that correct?

You do have some overlap and it is not necessary to run all the airport Express in wireless extend mode.. in fact it is good to use them in client mode.. ie join a wireless network assuming you are using them for airplay and not to extend the wireless. Or if wired then turn the wireless off.. having more wireless than you need is unhelpful.

A good example is channel 36 is working on Extreme or TC with 70% signal.. and also on one of the express you have channel 36 with 70% signal.. that is overlap that will cause issues at some point.

That express can be setup to join instead of extend.

I also think you need to have all the airports running static IP.. the problem with this setup is after a few days it is easy to have various routers move addresses.. but it gets lost in the system.. the usual rule is keep the network gear on fixed IP and the clients on DHCP.

The airplay Stereo Express and Elle's AE are both in Join The Network mode. I now don't need them to extend the network, only provide Air Tunes.

Then the answer to the question that LaPastenague was asking is that the Stereo Express and Elle's AE are both configured to operate in Bridge Mode, since no other setting is available in the "join" mode.

I would like to know why the Time Capsule "connection /data rate" is only 100Mb/s

I will let LaPastenague continue to answer, but I imagine that his reply will include information to the effect that if the Ethernet cable is not working correctly or an Ethernet connector is not configured correctly, a connection will still occur, but the speed will be limited to 100 Mbps.

I think your network will work a lot better without so many wireless devices transmitting.

I would like to know why the Time Capsule "connection /data rate" is only 100Mb/s, whereas the new Extreme is showing 1000Mb/s in Airport Utility?

You mentioned the only difference is 20M of cat6 ethernet.

Also, why is the Time Capsule only showing a data rate of 100Mb/s whereas the Kitchen AEtr shows 1000Mb/s? The only difference is 20M of Cat 6 ethernet cable?

You need to test if the ethernet is working 100% For gigabit the cable must be perfect. Poorly done termination is often an issue so it is just the cable.. easy test is to swap the two airports.. does the problem follow the airport.. so the TC still has 100Mbps in which case it has the problem.. or does it stay in the same location.. in which case the cable is poor and needs to be reterminated.

Can you give me a screenshot of where it shows you this info because it is something I have never seen before in the airport utility. And is extremely useful to have..

Otherwise I think we have covered everything.. except if your airports get lost on the network.. this happens because of issues with bonjour and the TG789 is unlikely to handle it correctly.

Rather than giving you instructions now.. wait and see if it happens.. if so just post again and I can show you what to do.

Thanks.. I forgot the iOS version.. mostly I prefer the Mac version but there is something I did not realise was in the iOS version that makes it useful.