Airport Express not extending via Ethernet
This seems like one of the easiest things to do. It's outlined in apple documents and the manual for the device. I've lost two days of my life trying to solve this. I've seen parts of the internet i wish i hadn't. There's been sadness, and there has been joy. I've seen so much. Just haven't found anything that resolves my issue.
I have a part of the house that has no wifi. It does have an ethernet connection back to the router. It is not an apple router. The ethernet extension is good. I know because we had the sparkie test it. I have been able to set a new network from it and it works. I just can't extend the wifi network in the house from it.
Airport utility will not see the ethernet in WAN or LAN and begin to set up the network via ethernet. It just goes to wifi which is a weak connection.
I have disabled wifi at the router and tried set up yet again after doing yet another reset. No luck. It still looks for wifi networks to extend. My only option is to set up a new network. I don't get any screens that show the stuff that so many threads and videos show. None of it.
Looking on Airport utility, the airport express wifi network is linked with a solid line to the router, and it is marked as bridged in the advanced settings. It is connected via Ethernet in the advanced settings. It just isn't a simple extension of the existing wifi network.
We now have two networks in the house which makes me sad.
What am I doing wrong? Is there a router setting I need to change?
It is deeply frustrating that I need to become a network engineer to do a straight forward task. I miss Apple products being easy to use.
Hope someone can help, I'm going crazy.
AirPort