AirPort Extreme: Device not found when connected to the AirPort Extreme

Thank you, Ehzun! This link (AirPort base station not seen or "An unexpected error occurred" appears in AirPort Utility 6.3 - Apple Support) worked for me to find the base station, and AE no longer is blinking amber -- there was a firmware update, which for some reason was not detected before the OSX update.

Our internet has been going in and out for months. I kept thinking it was our provider. I hope this fix works to solve that problem. Thank you!!

Open airport utility via spotlight , take the cursor on top menu bar > base station > click on restore default settings .

Hi, I had a similar problem to what you've been discussing here.

I am in the UK and use BT as my service provider, and running 7.7.7. version of the software

I had an internet connection on all my apple devices, and a green light on my A/E but the time machine backups weren't running, and the Yellow Triangular logo was appearing next to the router on my Airport Utility control panel. (my A/E was also showing up as a PC under the shared devices under the Finder List)

I spent an hour with Apple customer services, and they recommended a hard reset (new wifi password, network name, and PPPoE settings, etc..) - just after adding my last Nest Protect, I decided to go back into Airport Utility and add/enable 'Back to my Mac' - ... low and behold, the problem came back; Airport Utility displaying "Device not found, Forget?" ... I was then displayed with the yellow triangle logo, and the Time Machine Backups had stopped again....

The only way I was able to fix this was to; 1) unplug the router, and wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in again; (not something I like to do) 2) quickly (and 'm talking within a about a minute) hop onto my home network and go into Airport Utility settings. 3) Remove the 'Back to My Mac' account settings...

So far everything is working, but I would seem like it is the back to my mac feature that is throwing the error message up. When setup to use Back to my Mac the Airport Extreme falls offline, but continues to provide an external internet connection.

I apologise if this thread is now closed as it is solved, but though I would share my experience, as it seems to be an issue which as come about again as of August 2016... hope this helps a few.

Old or not... you posted exactly what I needed! This fixed a problem I've been researching for days because I couldn't get to my drives wirelessly.

Thanks! 🙂

Thank you! It worked for me. I don't know why it started happening now. Apple may wanna look into it.

Also, if you don't want to unplug your router, you can remove the back to my mac option by going to file menu in airport utility, select configure other.., type in the ip address for the router (usually 10.0.1.1) and type in the router password. This will bring up the router settings to be configured. You can remove back to my mac there and it should show up back on your airport utility.

Thank you! Maverick's solution - "configuring other" from the Airport Utility, and removing Back to My Mac - worked like a charm.

**** wrote:

Hi, I had a similar problem to what you've been discussing here.

I am in the UK and use BT as my service provider, and running 7.7.7. version of the software

I had an internet connection on all my apple devices, and a green light on my A/E but the time machine backups weren't running, and the Yellow Triangular logo was appearing next to the router on my Airport Utility control panel. (my A/E was also showing up as a PC under the shared devices under the Finder List)

I spent an hour with Apple customer services, and they recommended a hard reset (new wifi password, network name, and PPPoE settings, etc..) - just after adding my last Nest Protect, I decided to go back into Airport Utility and add/enable 'Back to my Mac' - ... low and behold, the problem came back; Airport Utility displaying "Device not found, Forget?" ... I was then displayed with the yellow triangle logo, and the Time Machine Backups had stopped again....

The only way I was able to fix this was to; 1) unplug the router, and wait 10 seconds, and plug it back in again; (not something I like to do) 2) quickly (and 'm talking within a about a minute) hop onto my home network and go into Airport Utility settings. 3) Remove the 'Back to My Mac' account settings...

So far everything is working, but I would seem like it is the back to my mac feature that is throwing the error message up. When setup to use Back to my Mac the Airport Extreme falls offline, but continues to provide an external internet connection.

I apologise if this thread is now closed as it is solved, but though I would share my experience, as it seems to be an issue which as come about again as of August 2016... hope this helps a few.

^^ this, 1000x this. I did exactly as you said: 1) pulled power on the Cable Router as well as the Airport extreme, hopped on the Airport Extreme which *did* show up about 10 seconds later, and immediately removed the "Back to my Mac" from the "Base Station" tab of the extreme's setup inside Airport Utility. Now everything works perfectly!

As a side note, you said I'd have about a minute to do this. Totally true. When the Airport first came back online, I figured "oh it's good now." I didn't do anything more. And the airport extreme when AWOL again. So on the second restart, is when I removed the "back to my Mac" entry.

Thanks so much for figuring this out for us.

<Personal Information Edited by Host>

There's another "fix" to the current missing Airport device issue that worked for me without de-configuring the BTMM service:

On the Airport: Enable a default host in Network (Network Options…), add IPv6 nameserver addresses.

I made both changes at once, kept my BTMM config too, and have had no problems since. Haven't tested which change made the difference, or if both are needed, but for now I thought I'd get the word out.

Brilliant! A perfect fix for me too.

Only in my case it was the original AirPort Time Capsule (current model) which disappeared from the AirPort Utility (or showed that it was "no longer connected"), after I had – some months back – extended its network using a new AirPort Express in an isolated corner of the house.

The strangest thing is that devices within cooee of the APTC were still wi-fi connected to it as before (as were devices near the Express connected to the Express), and Time Machine backup on all my Macs was even working fine to the APTC. I have all my devices' MAC addresses locked in on the APTC (via "Timed Access"), and the beauty of the Express was that the Time Capsule's config (including MAC addresses) propagated transparently to the Express when I installed it – one of the sweetest installs I have ever experienced.

In fact, the only reason I ran up the Utility lately was to add a couple more MAC addresses to the list, which is how I discovered this anomaly. I added the new MAC addresses onto the Express instead and later found out that these had propagated back onto the APTC even though it was not accessible at the time through the Utility. The Express did not show up any entries in its Back-To-My-Mac list, but I did remember that I had originally set this up on the APTC itself. With your fix I was able to see the APTC again and delete the BTMM entry. And all seems to be normal again! Cheers.

Hello - I posted what I found to be a temporary work around for this issue back in August.

I just wondered whether anybody had since tried re-adding Back To My Mac - or whether anyone knows if Apple have release a patch or software update to fix this issue? (I'm still running 7.7.7)

Many thanks. 🙂

OMG
Thanks a lot, DanWheat.

Your method works!

Let me add some steps and summarize it again.

1. Unplug everything from your AirPort, power cord also.

2. Wait for approximately 10 seconds.

3. Plug only the power cord to AirPort.

4. Wait until the orange led at AirPort blink, then go to your Mac, turn Wi-Fi on, choose your wireless network.

5. Open AirPort Utility, click at your AirPort (you should see it by now), click "Edit"

6. On the first tab ("Base Station" tab), delete everything on "Back to My Mac", then click Update on the bottom-right corner.

7. Wait until your AirPort finish restarting, then plug your Ethernet cable to your AirPort.

Done!

I selected “Configure Other” from the menu and entered in the router’s IP address (10.0.1.1) and my password and was able to connect to it. Then, I removed my Apple ID from back to my Mac and saved the settings and it rebooted and seemed to work fine. Then I tried re-adding my Apple ID and it’s back to Device Not Found, so it does seem to be an Apple ID issue.

This happened with mine today as well. I have three Extremes, the latest model. Only one of my three, will show up as of today in the Airport Utility. And it is one acting as a bridge. The main unit, the "router," and the other bridge will not show up at all. I even returned them to factory defaults and started over, and still the same issue. I too am still getting wifi obviously, but this issue is annoying and weird.

Disabling BTMM fixed this on my setup also. Lame.