airport utility asks for password after factory reset of Airport Extreme (spaceship), Why?

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airport utility asks for password after factory reset of Airport Extreme (spaceship), Why?

Hi, I recently replaced my Airport Extreme (the older model shaped like a space ship, 802.11 b/g) with an Airport Express. I tired to move the spaceship to a different room in my house to extend the wireless network, but it was not being recognized by the Airport Utility (v5.6). So, I did a factory reset of the spaceship. Now I can see it in Airport Utility, however when I try to configure it, the Airport Utility prompts me for a password. It will not accept "public" as the password. Any ideas? Could keychains be the problem? This is a 2009 MBP running 10.8.3.

Posted on Apr 16, 2013 3:21 PM

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Answer 1

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John Galt

Level 10

140,964 points

Apr 16, 2013 6:33 PM in response to dnonnema

A factory reset will erase any passwords.

Before going any further, understand that "wirelessly extending" your AirPort network with an original AirPort Extreme Base Station isn't going to work, not in the currently accepted sense that is. If you want to add it as an additional access point though, that can be accomplished by connecting it to your Express with an Ethernet cable.

The following KB article says AirPort Utility 5.6 should be able to administer your Extreme, but you may require an version of AirPort Utility even older than that to administer an original AirPort Extreme Base Station.

AirPort Base Station: How to set up and configure an 802.11g AirPort Extreme Base Station or AirPort Express in OS X Lion

If you are using OS X Lion and wish to set up or configure an older 802.11g AirPort Extreme Base Station, or 802.11g AirPort Express, manually download and install AirPort Utility 5.6. AirPort Utility 5.6 can be used to configure earlier 802.11g AirPort Extreme Base Station, and AirPort Express; it can also be used for 802.11n AirPort base stations.

Despite the above I seem to recall AU 5.6 would not recognize my Extreme, and that I had to use AirPort Utility 5.5.3, but I am certain that I was able to administer it with OS X "Lion" since I did not purchase a new 802.11n Extreme until after upgrading all my systems to Lion. Unfortunately I have since sold all my original AEBSs so I cannot repeat the test.

I am running a Lion machine at the moment, and I just confirmed AU 5.5.3 will install and run on Lion without difficulty. Installing it on Mountain Lion may be problematic though. I will check on that presently and may have a workaround. In the meantime see if you can download and install AirPort Utility 5.5.3 on your Mountain Lion MBP.

Also, do you happen to have an older Mac? Having one would preclude the tedium of installing an earlier version of AirPort Utility on Mountain Lion just to administer your AEBS.

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Answer 2

dnonnema Author

Level 1

11 points

Apr 16, 2013 6:57 PM in response to John Galt

Thanks for your reply. After doing the same thing over and over again, with the same results (call me crazy), I went to an iMac on the same network running SL and AU 5.6. AU on the iMac configured the spaceship with no issues in a matter of seconds. My MBP 10.8.3 and AU 5.6 did not work well together for the configuration. I have an older airport express in addition to the Extreme I wrrote about in this article, so I have to use the AU5.6.

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Answer 3

John Galt

Level 10

140,964 points

Apr 16, 2013 7:46 PM in response to dnonnema

Great! Thanks for the update.

Out of morbid curiosity I went to my Mountain Lion Mac and downloaded AirPort Utility 5.5.3. I confirmed it will not install on Mountain Lion using OS X's usual package installer, but using the technique that follows I was able to install and run it on Mountain Lion. The only thing I could not verify is its ability to administer an older AEBS since I no longer have any to test.

The remainder of this post is for those who are willing to circumvent Apple's desire to use only current versions of AirPort Utility for reasons known only to them. Proceed only if you accept this as an unsupported workaround strictly for the purposes of administering an older Extreme on a newer Mac.

Prerequisites: A package extractor like Pacifist or unpkg will be required. Pacifist is shareware, unpkg is free.

Download Pacifist here: http://www.charlessoft.com/

Download unpkg here: http://www.timdoug.com/unpkg/

Download AirPort Utility 5.5.3 here: http://support.apple.com/kb/dl1390

Directions for Pacifist (I do not have screenshots for unpkg but the idea is similar):

After the .dmg file finishes downloading double-click it to mount the volume containing the metapackage. Control-click it and select Open With > Pacifist from the contextual menu:

You will get the following dialog:

The "unidentified developer" in this case is Apple. Click Open to open Pacifist.

Click the "reveal triangles" until you see AirPort Utility.app and select it.

The next steps are important.

Select Extract To... from the toolbar as in the above screenshot. In the dialog that follows, choose Desktop since otherwise you will overwrite your existing, newer version of AirPort Utility in your Utilities folder which should not be deleted. Restoring it may not be trivial.

Authenticate, allow Pacifist to extract the app, then you can quit Pacifist.

You will now have AirPort Utility version 5.5.3 on your Desktop. Before you attempt to copy it to your Utilities folder though, be sure to rename it accordingly:

You can then drag it to your Utilities folder. Authenticate, and you will have it alongside later versions where they can peacefully coexist:

Use the newest version AirPort Utility to administer current production AirPort Base Stations, and older versions only as necessary for older AirPort Base Stations that cannot be administered any other way.

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