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jcavalie Author

Level 1

25 points

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

Hello - I’ve noticed over the last 2 days that iOS 14 is crashing Wi-Fi on my 5th generation Airport Extremes.

Here is my setup:

3x AirPort Extreme 802.11n (5th Generation) with version 7.8.1.
all are running in bridge mode (access point only) and are hardwired via gigE back to my main switch which connects to my dedicated router.
All have worked fine for many years
I have both an iPhone 11 and an iPhone 11Pro. Both upgraded to iOS14.
both have AT&T Wi-Fi calling enabled
if either makes a call or receives a call, it is only a matter of a few minutes before Wi-Fi becomes completely unavailable. The call drops and the Wi-Fi network does not appear in Settings->Wi-Fi and the phone reverts to cellular only (and we don’t get a cell signal here so there is a safety issue not having this working anymore).
only a power cycle of the 3 access points (unplugging them) brings the network back online.
If you only power cycle one of them, and then join the network, Airport Utility will show the green dot for the one to which you are connected and the yellow triangle for the others, until they are each power cycled.

Any suggestions? This is a critical issue introduced by iOS14.

thanks in advance!

iPhone 11 Pro

Posted on Sep 21, 2020 12:32 PM

Best reply

LaPastenague

Level 9

67,226 points

Posted on Sep 23, 2020 5:49 PM

The 4th Gen works like a champ

That is helpful info.

The Gen4 Extreme used a Marvel wifi chipset.

The Gen5 Extreme used a Broadcom wifi chipset.

Gen6 Extreme is also broadcom but AC version is totally different to N wireless version.

The equivalent Time Capsule are the same..

They have a driver issue in the broadcom wifi me thinks.

Has anyone tried using firmware going back to 7.6.8 say or even earlier.

It is easy to do.. hold the option key while you click the firmware number in summary shown in airport utility. Select the firmware you want and it will download and flash the firmware to the Extreme (screenshot is from Gen4 TC same as Gen5 AE)

I don't have any new devices with iOS 14 to test.. but I do run earlier firmware sometimes as I find stability better. You will get error but it can be ignored.. simply turn off checking firmware in airport utility preferences.

As a test it would also be interesting to turn off wireless security for a brief period and see if the problem is security.

Just go to the wireless tab.. select security and none.

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

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