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User profile for user: mikegaulco
mikegaulco Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

AirPort/Network Problems

I have a couple questions.


My home network has started having tons of trouble.


I have gone through and rebooted and reestablished all the different Airport devices. I have a total of seven, all together.


The architecture is: My ISP modem is on bridge mode and ethernet connected to an AirPort Time Capsule. The remaining five AirPort Express, and one AirPort Extreme are configured to Extend Existing Network.


This system has worked well for years.


Recently I have been having multiple and repeated issues with separate AirPort Expresses dropping out, and the network as a whole going down, then rebooting and coming back up.


We have notoriously poor an ISP at our location, but I have ultimately ruled that out as the problem.


So, as I said before, I went through and reconfigured every device and got the whole system back up and running, except the AirPort Extreme continues to bring the rest of the system down, or in general, just not do what it is supposed to, and used to, do very well. It is supposed to extend the network, and provide wired connection/access to one other peripheral game system. All other computers and devices connect wirelessly.


Now, no matter how many times I reset and restart and reconfigure the AirPort Extreme, it will not effectively connect to or extend the existing network. Sometimes it will show up looking good in AirPort Utility on one admin device, and as not connected on another admin device at the same time. If a device connects to it, it says it is connected to the right network, but there is no internet access available, and none of the other AirPort devices show up as part of the network, kinda like it's its own little malfunctioning island.


Most recently, I have gotten it to connect properly, to show up on several admin device's AirPort Utility, but when I plug the ethernet cable in to connect the gaming system, I go back to square one with a malfunctioning island disassociated from the rest of the network.


And then finally, I've started digging through my Network Utility and found in the Proxies pane: "Bypass proxy settings for these Hosts & Domains": *.local, 169.254/16


What is this and where did it come from? I never set any such setting....


Thanks in advance for the insight and assistance.


One final note regarding the AirPort Extreme. No efforts to really reset it to Factory seem to be working. It always appears to retain some semblance of memory of prior settings. What do I need to do to really get it back to a blank slate? Could that help?


Again, thanks!

AirPort Extreme 802.11ac Gen1

Posted on Apr 26, 2020 11:13 AM

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User profile for user: Bob Timmons
Bob Timmons
Community+ 2024
User level: Level 10
160,862 points

Posted on May 24, 2020 10:37 AM

I've got two time capsules and an AirPort Extreme. Are you saying that if I make one Capsule the primary point connected directly to the modem, then connect the second Capsule and the Extreme to the main Capsule by ethernet, I could then connect the other AirPort Expresses to the Capsule and the Extreme also by ethernet, and then achieve a faster multi access point network?


Yes. With Ethernet, you have a lot more options to extend a network.


And....you would also have an option to extend part of the network using wireless if it is not feasible to connect Ethernet to all the AirPorts. For example, you could connect the second Time Capsule and the Extreme to the main Time Capsule using Ethernet.....which will provide much faster speeds.....and then connect a few AirPort Expresses to the second Time Capsule using wireless and a few to the Extreme using wireless.


Expresses that were closer to the second Time Capsule will connect to that device using wireless and Expresses that are closer to the Extreme will connect to the Extreme using wireless.


Ideally......all of the AirPorts would connect using Ethernet back to a main Time Capsule using what is known as "home run" wiring. The main Time Capsule does not have enough Ethernet ports to allow this, so you can simply add an Ethernet switch with 5 ports, 8 ports, etc for more Ethernet connections.


If the "home" run wiring is not feasible for all the AirPorts, you can "daisy chain" AirPorts to each other. So, maybe the second Time Capsule and AirPort Extreme connect back to the main Time Capsule using Ethernet connections and then the AirPort Expresses connect to either the second Time Capsule or AirPort Extreme or both of them using Ethernet connections.


Or technically using the "daisy chain" method, you could wire the second Time Capsule to the main Time Capsule, wire the AirPort Extreme to the second Time Capsule, etc. There is a downside to the "daisy chain" method of course.........let's say the second Time Capsule has a problem. Then, all of the devices connected to the second Time Capsule will have a problem. And, it will be hard to figure out where the problem is because everything from the second Time Capsule on down will have a problem.


When you "home run" each AirPort back to a central main connection point, if one of the AirPorts has a problem, it won't affect the others, so it's easy to figure out where the problem really is.


The best investment that I ever made in terms of network performance in my home.....far better than any new router or new computer, etc...... was have the house wired for Ethernet to the three main areas where I needed good WiFi performance. Each of those areas has an AirPort wired back to the "main" AirPort, so I have a total of 4 AirPorts all wired together. The network provides a really strong, fast wireless signal everywhere in the house. Unfortunately, relatives want to visit just to use the WiFi network.









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User profile for user: Bob Timmons
Bob Timmons
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User level: Level 10
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May 2, 2020 3:35 PM in response to mikegaulco

I would go for a Factory Default Reset on the AirPort Extreme if only to completely clear the memory out, start from a known condition and prevent any kind of conflicting issues.


Set up the AirPort Extreme in the same room or in close proximity of the Time Capsule, then move it to the desired location and check to make sure that devices are connecting to the AirPort Extreme when they are close to the AirPort Extreme. Just open AirPort Utility and click on the AirPort Extreme to display a small window with information about the AirPort. The wireless clients or devices that are currently connected to the Extreme will be displayed.

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User profile for user: Bob Timmons
Bob Timmons
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User level: Level 10
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May 24, 2020 9:27 AM in response to mikegaulco

The AirPort Extreme is connecting to the Master AirPort Express......but.....the Master Express is connected to the Time Capsule using WiFi..


Apple does not allow you to "extend" a network using wireless two times. Any device that you want to extend the network using a WiFi connection must connect directly to the Time Capsule......not to another device that is already set up to extend the network.


As it stands now, devices cannot connect to the AirPort Extreme because you are trying to extend the network two times with this device. That is why you do not see any Wireless Clients connected to the AirPort Extreme.


The AirPort Extreme is connecting to the Master AirPort Express because it "sees" a stronger WiFi signal from the Master AirPort Express than it does from the Time Capsule.


If you want the AirPort Extreme to extend the network, it will need to connect directly to the Time Capsule, so it will need to be located closer to the Time Capsule than it is to the Master AirPort Express or any other AirPort for that matter.


When the AirPort Extreme is set up correctly to extend the network, all of the extending AirPorts will be on the same level side by side with Bath, Guest, Living Room, Master and Office. This may be difficult to accomplish because you have so many AirPorts extending the network, and they must all connect directly to the Time Capsule to extend the network correctly.


Unfortunately, when you extend a network using a wireless connection, there is always a loss of about half of the potential speed on the network......and you will have 5 or 6 devices extending.......so your network is really losing a ton of potential speed.


Frankly, your network will probably operate better if you can use fewer AirPorts.


Typically, most users only have 1 or 2 AirPorts extending the network using a wireless connection, so things are much simpler. When you have as many AirPorts on a network as you do, you really need to have some or most of them connecting to the Time Capsule using wired Ethernet connections......because there is no speed loss when you extend a network using Ethernet connections.


Unfortunately, unless your house was pre-wired with Ethernet to major areas in the house, it may be a major undertaking and major expense to try to wire the house at this point. Maybe you could get Ethernet connections from the Time Capsule to just a few major areas of the house and then let the other AirPorts extend using wireless.


Your network will operate much faster this way.





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User profile for user: mikegaulco
mikegaulco Author
User level: Level 1
11 points

May 24, 2020 9:57 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Hmmm.


I didn't realize I was killing speed by adding extra devices.


That is a problem.


I've added all the airports, to facilitate audio connectivity to all the different locations, so each place can play their own music wirelessly, or the whole house can rock out from one device. Killing my overall network speed was definitely never an intention.


You've caused me to reconsider my whole set up.


So far I have preferred AirPlay over bluetooth. Bluetooth doesn't facilitate connection to any more than one set of speakers at a time...


I may have to go back to my whole house sound system, and wire that thing back up somehow.


I also thought I was eliminating dead spots, by providing more access points. Guess that's not the case though, since everything has to connect back to the same hub anyway.


I've got two time capsules and an AirPort Extreme. Are you saying that if I make one Capsule the primary point connected directly to the modem, then connect the second Capsule and the Extreme to the main Capsule by ethernet, I could then connect the other AirPort Expresses to the Capsule and the Extreme also by ethernet, and then achieve a faster multi access point network?



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AirPort/Network Problems

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