7.6.3 Firmware Update Woes Today, anyone else? Think twice about it!

After the update(s) go to the "network" tab and then "network options" and uncheck the "enable NAT Port mapping protocol". After that you have to reset all the units in the network (takes sometimes two resets.

I have not figured out how to extend a guest wireless network. I have updated my old (2007) Airport Extreme and brand new Airport Extreme. But if I try to extend the Guest Network I get the message:

No base stations found

No base stations founf on "ZZZ.Guest".

Choose a different network or go back

I have been able to extend the 2GHz non-guest network, but I could do that before the update.

I was unable to extend the 5GHz non-guist network. You can select the 5GHz network, but it ends up extending the 2GHz.

After extending sucessfully, if go to re-configure, the guest network is not one of the choices to extend.

Could this be a feature that will not work with my old Airport Extreme? I could not find any additional information on the Apple web site or Google.

Has anyone else managed to extend a Guest network? If so how?

Thanks.

Please post the model numbers of both Airports. Please make sure the the master base station has allow this network to be extended and the unit that is the extended has extended ths network is marked. Both units must be marked for this to work, one to allow and one to extend.maybe this will help.

The two Airport Extremes are:

MD031LL/A Model: A1408 AirPort Extreme Base Station (5th Generation)

MB053LL/A Model: A1143 AirPort Extreme Base Station (2nd Generation)

Both have the firmware just released.

With AirPort Utility 6.2 I cannot find an option anywhere to select to extend a network. There is in the AirPort Utility 5.x version. Despite that I have managed to extend the non-guest network. Is this an option that is only available when you first configure the base station?

Thanks.

Disaster of an update IMHO. Couldn't connect to internet for hours, wifi slow and range poor when it did, with very high noise levels, Airport Utility not finding AEBS, green status light staying on on AEBS and AU even after modem powered down.

Gone back to 7.6.1 and now about to do another factory reset to get the green light working on the AEBS and AU properly, e.g. change to amber if the modem is off rather than stay green!!!!

I won't be changing from 7.6.1 unless I have to!! Every update Apple releases these days across all its devices seems to be a dog's breakfast!!

I can confirm what everyone is saying here but I got it to work correctly. I have a 4th Gen Time Capsule and a 5th Gen Airport Extreme. I was having the same issues after updating the firmware to 7.6.3, ie, drop outs with both wired and wireless connections, slow downs, etc. The final straw was when It quit sending out DHCP renewals to my devices and they all fell off the network. (Not sure how relevant it is, but like other people mentioned, I too have both dhcp reservations and port mappings in the Time Capsule configuration.)

Just for record, I used Airport Utility 5.6.1 to do the following:

The first thing I did was to load up airport utility and export the configuration files for both the Time Capsule and the Airport Extreme to my desktop. The second thing I did was to unplug the power to the Airport Extreme to simplify troubleshooting. The third thing I did was to perform a hard reset on the Time Capsule by using a paper clip to hold the reset button in on the back of the Time Capsule for 5 seconds until the light turned amber color and blinked fast.

After that I let the Time Capsule boot up completely again and went back a workstation and started the airport utility. After joining the generic apple wireless network (apple2sdfw or something) I configured the Time Capsule with the default settings it recommended for Time Capsule name and Wireless network. After I updated the Time Capusle with the new settings and it rebooted everything worked fine and I had no issues. (other than I lost all my previous settings for wireless network, port mappings, dhcp reservations, etc) I ran a few speed tests and everything was great.

So then I imported my original settings for the Time Capsule and updated it and when it rebooted it acted just like before and wouldnt give out a IP address via DHCP to either wired or wireless clients, although if I put a manual address in the tcp/ip settings on the workstation it would work fine.

I went back to the Airport utility and under Internet/NAT I unchecked Enable default host and also unchecked Disable NAT Port and then clicked on Configure Port Mappings and unchecked all the items I had listed in there. Lastly, under the DHCP tab I removed all the entries I had under DHCP Reservations and then updated the Time Capsule.

When it rebooted it still wouldnt hand out a DHCP request so then I went into Internet/DHCP and changed the DHCP range from 192.168. to 10.0. and under Airport/Wireless changed the wireless name to something random I had never used in the past and then updated the Time Capsule. When it rebooted everything worked perfect and it handed out a DHCP address to my clients. I ran more speed tests and everything was working fine.

Next I just went back into the Airport Utility and changed the DHCP back to 192.168 and then updated the Time Capsule again and everything still worked great so I changed the wireless name and updated the Time Capsule again and it still worked fine.

Again I went back into Airport Utility one last time and re-enabled the Default host and set the IP address for it and then re-enabled the NAT Port Mapping Protocol and clicked on Configure Port Mappings and put check marks back on all my port mappings. Under Internet/DHCP I manually entered my DHCP reservations for the clients I had reservations for and then updated the Time Capsule for the last time and it has worked fine ever since.

Hopefully this helps someone out... You may be able to even cheat a little and import just some of your settings again back into the Time Capsule after doing a hard reset but Im not sure about that. Personally, I think it was the wireless network name that was screwing everything up, it seems like once I changed my wireless network name it seemed to fix the problem.

Normally (whatever that is) you set the modem in bridge mode and the main router in Bridge mode, then the modem generates the dhcp, and the TC distributes that. So avoid NAT. AVOID NAT.

After the latest fw update it can happen that the modem is in NAT mode. After that it should be very easy.

fw update the extenders first, then the main router.

I tried the same things and while it did work ( sort of) and the speeds were OK at first glance, i noted that the range had dropped off to about 30 feet max before it would loose signal where before I could go out as far as 60 to seventy feet before signal dropped even a little. I went back to 7.6.1 and had no issues with the original settings and names etc., and my range came back as well. The point is none of us should have to go through all this nonsense just for a firmware update that if Apple had tested it properly before releasing it, would have been quick, simple & easy. I bought Apple products for the simple reason that they were built right, supported properly and just worked with no hassle. Hmmm didn't go that way this time though. Any way if it worked out for some that's great but for most of us it did not.

What a nightmarish update . I rolled back to 7.6.1 on my apple extreme base station and airport express after off and on intermittent wifi on YES my ipad and iPhone !! Lol. Oh and my ROKU and Apple TV .

Now they are all my working flawlessly . I also had a major drop in wifi speed and range .

Apple , please stop putting out garbage updates !

I too did the 7.6.3 firmware update and was left with terrible results. 5th Gen Extreme and 11" Macbook Air were the two pieces of hardware I was dealing with--I turned off the other Airport Extremes and ignored my other Macs. Prior to the update I had a consistent 450Mbps connection between the Air and Extreme with transfer rates approaching 15MB/sec. After the update, the highest connection rate was 300Mbps and tranfer rates of 200KB–2MB/sec.

After two calls to Apple—they claim that there have been no reports of this issue—multiple restarts, roll-backs and manual channel changes, they are sending me a new Extreme to test out.

Internet connectivity and network transfers have slowed to a crawl--unusable and I have not been able to see the 450Mbps connection speed again. An aside, the Mac Mini I use for my media server did not receive the 6.2 update and it does have a connection speed of 450Mbps which leads me to belive that the 6.2 update may have crippled it on the Air. I'm in the process of reinstalling 10.8.2 and will let you know if that helps.

Back after rolling back to 10.8.2 (prior to AU6.2 and firmware 7.6.3 updates) and my connection speeds are back to normal. Still not seeing 450Mbps connection but the transfer rates across the network are back to an average of 12MB/sec. I'll check back in if I see any change in connection speeds.

Thanks for taking the time to explain the rollback.

Same issues for me. I updated to 7.6.3 from 7.6.1 and immediately had issues with my network. Hard wired devices had no issue but my computer, my iPhone and my iPad all had connectivity issues via wifi. Occasionally showing as connected but not or alternately simply dropping the connection. Often once dropped I could see the network but not connect.

Yes, I saw this as well. My wifi rate would drop dramatically, I'd notice because I work out while watching videos on Youtube, and the resolution would drop *dramatically* even though the number of bars my iPad was reporting remained unchanged.

I've rolled back to 7.6.1 and we'll see if that fixes things.

Kinda stinks that Apple rolled out suck an incredible turkey 😟

Also, it's been a while now since this update, I wonder what the ETA is on a working 7.6.4?

Same headaches here, I have Airport Express's extending my Airport Extreme's network. I stream music to 2 of the frequently and they go offline all the time. It was unuasable because the music cuts out so much. I downgraded all of them and eveything works fine now.

I had to roll back to 7.6.1. The update made me lose connection often and required a restart of the Airport Extreme. Now it's back to the rock solid connection it was for the year that I had it.

Very frustrating as I usually just trust updates from Apple. This is two now that have caused issue (this one and the latest iOS causing battery issue). I think its time to treat Apple updates like Microsoft updates; let someone else try them first to see all the issues.