Airport Express Keeps switching Airport device it is connecting to.

Jsegrue wrote:

Hi, I have a 1st gen airport express which is meant to connect wirelessly to my 6th gen AirPort Extreme and then wirelessly to my airport time capsule.

If your goal is to use the AirPort Express to extend the wireless range of the AirPort Extreme ... and then, to have the Time Capsule connect to that extended network to extend it even further, that won't work. The Apple base stations are not designed to extend a wireless network in a daisy-chain method. Of course, if that is not your intent, then I have misinterpreted your post and you can ignore my comments.

The AirPort Express will probably need to be at least twice as close to the AirPort Extreme than it is to the Time Capsule, and there must also be significantly fewer obstructions like walls, ceilings, heavy furniture, tile bath, mirrors, etc in the direct signal path between the Time Capsule and AirPort Express.

Apple's system only works on signal strength, so the two AirPort devices both need to be much closer to the Time Capsule than they are to each other. An ideal setup would be to have the Time Capsule in the middle of the house and one AirPort at one end of the house and the other AirPort at the other end of the house.

So, the worst location for the Time Capsule would be near the end of the house.

In other words, there is no way to tell the AirPorts where they should connect, so their location is the only thing that you can control.

If this does not work for you, then the only option will be connect one of the AirPorts to the Time Capsule using a permanent wired Ethernet cable connection.