iOS14 Wi-Fi calling crashing Wi-Fi on 5th gen Airport Extremes

Looking forward to hearing the results of your next call with tech support.

Has anyone tried iOS14.2 Public Beta to see if this issue is resolved?

I have the exactly same issue with a Time Capsule, having 7.8.1 firmware.

I can confirm that the issue happens also with AppleTV Remote.

I also tried turning off Bluetooth. Extreme crashed in less than 5 seconds.

Same issue here with a Time Capsule, happening with Apple TV’s Remote App (after updating to iOS 14).

I don't have a 5th Gen AirPort Extreme here to test, but I can report that using 2 of the 802.11ac AirPort Extremes here......informally known as the 6th Gen......there are no issues at all with WiFi Calling.

If you have not already done so, try turning off WiFi Calling and power off the iPhone /iPad. Then, power the device back up and enable WiFi calling again to see if that helps.

As you know, there are no settings on the AirPort routers regarding WiFi calling, so if the problems continue, you have an iOS issue, not an AirPort issue. Try posting over in the support forums for the iPhone and iPad.

We are having similar issues. Have an AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Generation) that has been rock solid. Upgraded one iPhone 11 to iOS 14 and the Apple watch associated with it to iOS 7, and now the Airport wifi point randomly crashes. All of the wired connections still work but this airport base station goes offline. A reboot clears the issue until it fails again. We made the iPhone forget the network, and reconnected it. We turned off the new private address on both the iPhone and associated watch once we reconnected them. Wi-fi calling is not enabled. We have been planning to upgrade the Airport for a while, but haven't yet decided on the path. Up until this iOS and Watch OS upgrade, we have had no issues at all.

Thanks for the info. I also called support today but they told me that the product was outdated and probably not compatible with ios 14 🤦🏼‍♂️. The provisional solution was to put the 6th generation airport extreme as the main router and the 5th generation as a repeater. so far it has not failed again

Since Apple no longer manufactures or supports their airport devices, an iOS14 update to fix this is anyone's guess. The only workaround (for me) is turn off Wi-Fi Calling, which is a problem given poor cellular reception at my location. The best "fix" is to replace the network router and access points, which I am doing. At some point in the near future, that will be necessary anyway.

For what it's worth, I have a 4th gen Airport Time Capsule (ATC) 7.8.1 in my study as my main router with multiple Airports across my house connected to it by ethernet (all of these in bridge mode, but I think that's irrelevant for this issue).

My iPhone is running iOS 14.

After receiving a WhatsApp call on my iPhone in my study (which is connected to wifi from this older ATC) after ~1 min, wifi would disappear. This ATC would show a green light but when I open Airport Utility it's not on the network. Restarting it (unplug/plug in) restores wifi and everything works again until the next call...

Turning off the Private Address feature in Wi-Fi setting on my iPhone did nothing to help.

One of my other Airports is an Extreme 802.11ac (7.9.1). With my iPhone connected to this Airport, I can receive WhatsApp calls without the router freezing up.

If I move to any part of my house where my iPhone is a client of an older Airport 7.8.1 then after ~1 min on WhatsApp that Airport will freeze up.

Before iOS 14 I never had this problem.

Hello everybody,

I am following this thread fr some time now while having the exactly same problem.

Maybe it’s interesting for you guys who have made contact with Apple Employees to know that WiFi calls or WhatsApp Calls or similar are not the only cause for this.

In my business I am powering the WiFi with several 5th Gen. Airport Extreme.

Since the first employee updated to iOS 14 we have the exactly same issues.

But I can confirm that nobody did WiFi calls (we don’t have that in Germany), nor WhatsApp oder Skype or any other calls except the “normal” ones…

After investigating on that I surely can confirm that iOS 14 devices are causing it.

Thank you all for helping / referring this to Apple.

So here’s an interesting turn of events. If i turn off Bluetooth on my XS Max, my AirPort Extreme doesn’t crash when making a call via WiFi Calling. If I turn it back on, the AE immediately crashed. Tried it 5 times to reproduce. 

Interesting. 

I’m having the same issue as well. My main is a AirPort Extreme (4th Gen) and that is networked to two other AirPort Extremes (5th Gen). They are all on 7.8.1. It’s only the two 5th Gen AirPort Extremes that I have to power cycle to get them to work again. The 4th Gen works like a champ.

The issue started after updating our devices at home to iOS14.

I won’t go into detail about my set up because the original poster (jcavalie) nailed it perfectly.