Airport Extreme Bridge mode

Hi,

I just have the same issue and I found the solution in another forum.

The answer is: Do all the Airport Extreme configuration with the WAN port unplugged. Do it from the scratch, this mean, restore default and then do all the configuration.

If someone from apple is reading this. This is a BUG and needs to be corrected.

Hope apple can solve this bug and realease a software update...

Sorry to get in to this discussion ,but as I see Bob may can answer my question. Please let me know if I should go another way.

I have an AirPort Extreme conecte by Ethernet to an ADSL router provide by my telephone company. The AirPort Extension provide Wifi to all my devices help by a new Airport Express, an Old Airport Express and in the last place an old Airport Time Capsule. This way I can reach part of my space. The problem is that the old AirPor loose the connection often. Especially the AirPort Time Capsule. And I have to reboot it almost a¡every day.

I must specify also that at this end point (the AirPort Time Capsule), locate around 10 frets above the rest of the NetWork, I have connected through Ethernet cable and Wifi 3 Macs and a QNAP NAS + ipads, ipods and iphones.

My question is, to improve performance should I get new AirPort Express or Extreme devices, and use the old ones to extend the network in other directions?

Thank you in advance for your attention.

I am not getting the same results. I follow the steps with WAN disconnected but the AE never shows up on the network so I can configure. What am I missing?

cab I set it up with WAN connected and then go back and make changes?

Please start a new post and provide complete details on what products you are using, how they will connect and what operating system you are using on your Mac or PC.

Thanks wmahler,

Your post did it for me! I live in the Netherlands. Have a Draytek 2130n modem/router (ISP Vodafone Netherlands) with bad wi-fi. Bought an Apple Airport Extreme and first followed the installation procedure by apple. I was able to install the airport extreme but it wouldn't work behind my draytek. The error being 'no dns-servers'.

I followed your setup prodcedure and it's working great now! thanks! The lesson here: don't always follow the apple installation.

I just spent 6 hours working my way around using a 4th gen airport extreme as an extender for a new time capsule. 5.5 hrs were spent trying to use my new macbook pro using various contortions and variations on the theme of how to get it to work.

My last ditch was to fire up the windows machine the macbook just replaced, install the ancient airport utility for windows, and guess what...it works.

I did a factory restart before attaching it via ethernet direct to the windows machine, no problems with configuration.

Then I got smart, tried to update it via the macbook to 5ghz and bricked it (the airport).

Another hard restart and attachment to the PC, complete new set up (avoiding the 5ghz) and it's working fine.

Are you there Apple, it's me Margaret...

If there've been 73K views of this thread, you wonder what the threshold for implementing a fix for this by Apple is.

Setting up the airport extreme not plugged into ethernet finally fixed it after hours of troubleshooting. I've been doing network repair and setup on and off for over a decade and this is a pretty obvious bug. Shame on apple for not fixing it or documenting the workaround.

The secret to creating a new wifi network in bridge mode is to set it up without plugging in ethernet cables. Ignore the step where the airport configuration utility tells you to plugin. Click next, triple check your settings, upload them, restart and only then plug in.

If you are trying to create a roaming wifi network with multiple airports using a wifi link for the airport utility you'll need to do the above process on each airport. When you've finished programing one, shut that one down until you do the others. Then you can power them all on.

If you leave the first successfully programmed unit on while attempting to program a new unit, the airport utility will attempt to connect to the 1st device and the update will fail.

I've tried many times a hard reset and not plunging the cable until everything is configured (in bridge mode).

My setup is quite simple:
Modem in bridge mode ---> TL-ER5120 Load balancer Router (DHCP Server) ---> Airport Extreme in bridge mode.
My wifi clients connected to Airport cannot get an IP address from the router. If I connect through ethernet ir can.
Please, can some one shed a light on this?
Thank you very much!

I would really like RobWray's (or anyone else's help) with my Airport setup involving multiple Airports including one for which I needed to use the Bridge Mode because of the length of the Ethernet cable. I had done this successfully one time, but I had to swap out Airport devices including using a different Airport as my Main Airport Base Station (i.e., modem-attached) and can't successfully replicate what I had done with the Airport for the distant location ("Pluto"). Everything else on the newly configured network is working fine.

In addition, it MAY be relevant that my cable modem has changed (awhile ago) to one with 2 IP addresses, one of which it assigns to my Main Airport Base Station (i.e., locally 10.0.1.1). That has been working fine also.

At any event, I have gone as far as physically resetting the Airport that I want to use as a (bridged) base station ("Pluto") but at this point I can't even get the Airport Utility (Yosemite; v. 6.3.5) to recognize it as a "new wi-fi device." But let's say I get beyond that--if I can't I'll just buy a new Airport: the same "bridging" problem will still be with me.

What I need to have reviewed for me is how I set up the "Pluto" Airport as a bridged network. For example, do I set the Main Airport as running as a Bridge or as DHCP and NAT? The latter is how I have it set up now. When I program "Pluto" I presume I select "Create a Wireless Network" and then under the Network tab, select "Off (Bridge Mode)." Do I put anything in under DHCP Reservations? or anything else on the Network tab? I have tried this once with no luck.

I have tried setting up "Pluto" through wi-fi, as suggested; and also through Ethernet.

Hoping someone here can help me. My email is hjbecker@uci.edu if that would work for you as well.

Please start a new question in a new thread. This thread is years old and goes all over the place as far as topics and issues.......confusing to users who are looking for solutions.

Status, ignore dual nat: why not turn off the wifi on cable modem if you are using wifi on AirPort Extreme?

same issue for me, I had my cable provider turn off the wifi on their device so I'm using Ethernet with their modem and wifi from my AirPort Extreme, not in bridge mode!