Constant Need to Unplug and Restart Airport Extreme

Power down both the Extreme and the modem. Wait a moment, then power them back up again. Next time your Wi-Fi service goes out, leave them connected to each other and connect your MacBook to one of the Extreme's LAN ports instead.

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Hi David,

We have had very much the same issue at our office. At first we thought it was due to overheating or due to a high number of attached devices (50+). Turns out the issue is with the latest firmware.

In order to resolve, we downgraded the firmware back to v7.6.1.

We replaced our original Airport Extreme through warranty. As soon as we set up the new one and updated to v7.6.4, we experienced the same issue. Upon downgrading everything seems to be working great!

You can downgrade in Airport Utility. Hold the Option key and click on the version number on the Airport Extreme.

I definitely think this is a Mavericks issue. My iMac running Mavericks is the ONLY system in the house that drops the network randomly while all other systems never lose the network. No idea how to resolve this, but here is the workaround I'm posting:

I've had the 'network drop' issue with my Airport Extreme for the last 2 months. It reconnects when I pull the ethernet cable and plug it back in. I've tried downgrading the AE firmware, resetting to factory, etc. Nothing worked. I finally threw in the towel and created a script that monitors my network connectivity and restarts my interface if it senses it has dropped:

##############

#!/bin/ksh

while true

do

yup=`ping -c1 -t2 www.google.com|grep from`

if [[ -n $yup ]]

then echo "Internet is connected!"

else

ifconfig en0 down; ifconfig en0 up

echo "Down at `date +%m%d%Y%H%M%S`">>./dropped.out

fi

sleep 5

clear

done

###############

I know its a workaround, but its saving me the headache of constantly pulling my cable and putting it back in!

Good luck!

-Mike Gray

I've had the same issue for months. However, when mine stopps working, it stops for every device, not just those running Mavericks. I've downgraded as tommytomatoe has suggested. Time will tell if this is the solution.

This exactly describes my problem. Right now one of my Windows 7 laptops is dropping every few hours. I can disconnect and re-connect to the wifi spot and it mostly works for a little while longer, but then randomly drops connection. The iPhones and my Windows XP system just keep chugging away. But this isn't the complete story. Sometimes it's the XP system that drops and the other ones work fine, and I've had the iPhone drop and the Windows PCs work fine. Like you guys I've found it's a router (Extreme) problem, not the cable modem, which doesn't seem to have any issue with the internet connection itself, and things directly plugged in haven't experienced a problem (i.e. appears to be wifi only).

I've been running 7.6.3 for a long time and just upgraded to 7.6.4 today cause I hoped it might solve this, but then ran into the exact same thing hours later. I'll try 7.6.1 and then report back in a few weeks.

Nope, that didn't do the trick. After downgrading to 7.6.1 I still had the same dropping issues. That said, it only happened on my newest laptop now, and the others didn't seem to be affected.

I did find this article which more closely dealt with my problem (possibly an interaction with my wifi card): https://supportforums.cisco.com/discussion/11388801/intermittent-dropouts-intel- centrino-advanced-n-6205.

Dropping the driver version of my Intel 6205 has mitigated the problem so far.

I have the following setup:

Airport Extreme (5th Gen) -- primary and connected to internet

Airport Extreme (2nd Gen) -- connected via WiFi extension

Airport Express (1st Gen) -- connected via WiFi extension

All are running 7.6.4 firmware.

All of my Apple products (iMac, Mac Mini, MacBook Air, iPhone 5s, (2) iPhone 6's, iPad Air 2, iPad Mini 1, all WiFi extended routers) stay connected without issue. I also have (3) Windows laptops (different makes, models and OS) that periodically drop off of the WiFi. For two of them a "Troubleshoot Problems" on the WiFi connection usually resolves it. For the other, I have to completely reboot the primary Airport Extreme in order for things to start working again.

Apple, please, please, come out with a 7.6.5 that addresses this. I am happy to test for you or provide any additional information you would need to diagnose/troubleshoot this.

Steve

You are posting to a thread that is almost 7 months old on a user-to-user forum.

We are all users here, just like you. You would know this if you read the Terms of Use for this area.

Apple is not here, and it is extremely unlikely that anyone from Apple will ever see your post. Even if they might, they will not respond here.

If you want to talk to Apple, you need to contact them directly. http://www.apple.com/support/contact/

Bob, appreciate your insight. It was posted in the user forum hoping that someone (user) may read what I wrote and have something to actually contribute to the topic based on the additional information that I posted ... instead of cluttering the post with things like had you read the terms and agreements you'd know Apple wasn't here; followed by my post (this one) in reply. The last comment was more of a come on Apple, for the love of god....

Lets keep this techy.