Help with roaming network, flashing amber

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Help with roaming network, flashing amber

Hi all. I've been tearing my hair out for a bit, have tried suggestions unearthed in these forums, and finally decided I'd better describe my problem in hopes some knowledgeable person can help.

I have an Airport Extreme N in my house and it's connected to two older Airport Express units. One of the latter is in the pantry, where it simply carries sound wirelessly to the stereo, which in turn pumps it to some built-in speakers.

The second Airport Express is out in my office, in a separate building 50 feet away. An ethernet cable runs in a conduit underground from the office to the house, where it connects to a wall jack. A cable from this jack runs to a port in my Airport Extreme. Unfortunately, I am not able to get this office Airport Express to work properly.

I have configured it as a bridge with the same name and WPA/Personal key. I am able to connect to this device via wifi, but there is no Internet access--and the amber light flashes persistently. Could it be an issue of DHCP? The Airport Extreme is configured to use DHCP, but when I try to configure the AX to NOT use DHCP I run into problems. It wants a router address, rejects the one I've taken from the other device, and then starts claiming it's out of range or something.

So--can anyone help me figure out why no Internet from this Airport Express device in my office, where of course I desperately need Internet? Specifically, how should I configure the device, given that I'm using it in "bridge" mode, with respect to TCP/IP?

Many thanks for any help!

Posted on Apr 19, 2011 8:01 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Bob Timmons

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Apr 19, 2011 8:08 AM in response to Community User

The second Airport Express is out in my office, in a separate building 50 feet away. An ethernet cable runs in a conduit underground from the office to the house, where it connects to a wall jack. A cable from this jack runs to a port in my Airport Extreme. Unfortunately, I am not able to get this office Airport Express to work properly.

Have you tested this connection to make sure things are working? In other words, power down the AirPort Express and connect your computer directly to the ethernet cable from the main router. Try to log on and get on the Internet. Be sure to turn off the wireless on the computer when you run this "test"

Can you do this?

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Answer 2

Apr 19, 2011 8:28 AM in response to Bob Timmons

Just the person I was hoping would respond! Thanks for this.

To my embarrassment, I went out to the office, plugged the ethernet cable directly into my Macbook Pro, and discover that I am still Internet-free. In network prefs it says something about a self-assigned IP address. I tried refreshing dhcp and using a different "location," both to no avail. This is a puzzle; I've never had such a problem before.

I don't think it's the cable, since earlier this morning I was able to see both AX and Airport Extreme on my internal network.

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Answer 3

Apr 19, 2011 8:48 AM in response to Community User

Please leave the AirPort Express off for now, and then perform a complete power cycle of your entire network as follows:

Power everything off...modem, main router, computers, printers, all devices. Order is not imporant here

Wait a moment, then power up the modem first and let it run a moment or two by itself

Then power up the AirPort Extreme the same way

Power up each device (leaving the AirPort Express off) the same way until everything is powered back up

Perform the same test again by turning off the wireless on your computer or laptop and connecting to the ethernet cable that runs back to the AirPort Extreme.

Can you connect to the Internet now?

If no, please move the laptop very close to the AirPort Extreme and connect to the Extreme using a short ethernet cable. Can you connect now?

If yes, then I suspect a bad or intermittent connector on the "long" ethernet cable. You'll need to get that addressed first by replacing one or both connectors on either end.

Then test at the end of the "long" ethernet cable again with your laptop to make sure that you can connect to the Internet. Obviously, we cannot proceed with the AirPort Express configuration until you have a reliable Internet connection out in the remote building.

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Answer 4

Apr 19, 2011 1:24 PM in response to Bob Timmons

Bob, thanks a million for prompting me to investigate this. I discovered that the cable running from the Airport Extreme to the wall jack (where the it meets the crucial office connection) ran through a Linksys switch and was plugged into the "uplink" port. I switched it to one of the regular ports and voila, everything works!

I have no idea if an uplink port is special in some way, or if it's just a bum port, but I am very grateful for your help on this, as well as your clear instructions in other threads on setting up a roaming network.

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Answer 5

Apr 19, 2011 1:40 PM in response to Community User

Glad you got things figured out!

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