Can't connect Airport Express to New Airport Extreme
Hi:
My Apple network has been running successfully for years
with an Airport Extreme Base Station (Model A1143 – 2nd Gen). I am
attempting to swap out a new sealed-in-the-box Airport Extreme Base Station
(Model A1521 – 6th Gen) and it has been a nightmare.
My original network had five regularly working Airport
Express units (Models A1264 mostly, plus an older A1088, I think) feeding
Airplay music to rooms throughout the two-story house. Two of the Expresses
have CAT5 running to them, but the rest are wireless. All were visible on the
Airport Utility (v6.3.7) running on my 2014 MacBook Pro running OSX Sierra.
I removed my old Airport Extreme, unplugged all the
Expresses and followed the instructions to set up the new Airport Extreme. The
set up appeared to go well and I had a much faster wireless connection to the
internet. Once I started adding Airport Expresses, however, I was knocked off
the internet and had difficulty reconnecting.
With each Express, I was able to successfully add it to the
network and see it in the Airport Utility. Then, the Express would disconnect
itself and my new Airport Extreme could no longer connect to the internet.
After multiple tries, I did a factory reset on the Airport Extreme, did the initial setup again, and
re-established the wireless connection to the internet. However, each time I
try to add an Airport Express the same thing happens: the Express initially
establishes a connection to the Extreme but then is lost.
I’ve tried to reset each Express before introducing them to
the new Extreme, but they each come back with their original name, connect, and
then are lost. Same story.
The wifi speeds have never been this fast so I’m happy with
the new Extreme, but I want my old network back and I can’t figure out how.
The ONLY thing that was strange on the initial setup of the
new Extreme is that once connected it asked me to update to the new firmware (7.9.1). I
attempted the update, but when done it briefly said something like “the firmware
update was not successful.” In the Airport Utility, however, it does say that
the new Airport Extreme is currently running version 7.9.1.
I apologize for the long post, but I wanted to be complete with
my information. This is very frustrating. I’d sure appreciate any insight that
could be offered.
Many thanks!