I plug in the new unit, launch Airport Utility. It finds the new airport express, but fails after trying to join it, saying an error occurred and try again. Repeated tries fail also. Same thing happens with second new unit I just bought. Running Mavericks and Airport Utility 6.3.2. Any suggestions?
"Join" issues are almost always a result of mismatched wireless security settings between the existing wireless network and the AirPort Express.
The Express expects to join a wireless network using WPA2 Personal security, so check to insure that your existing wireless network is using that setting.
A bit more compatible setting that may work if you are having difficult with WPA2 is WPA/WPA2 Personal, but it is also a bit less secure than WPA2 personal.
Existing network is already using WPA/WPA2 Personal security.
Try WPA2 Personal, since that is the default setting on the AirPort Express.
If still no luck, some possibilities are:
The Express is simply not compatible with your existing wireless router and you will need to connect using Ethernet.
Mavericks and AirPort Utility 6.3.2 are creating issues. We are seeing a lot of reports of wireless issues with Mavericks. Try another Mac running an earlier version of the operating system or a PC.
After that, I'm out of ideas.
So I changed the security setting to WPA2 Personal and got the same result. Unexpected Error. Except now Airport utility can only find the base station and not any of the Airport Express units already on the network, which it could before. I bought these new 802.11n Express units to replace older ones that I can now not manage after installing Mavericks (which won't run Airport Utility 5.6). Base station is and AirPort Extreme maybe two years old. Am I going to have to replace the base station as well?
Okay, using another computer with older operating system and setup is now working. Thanks!
Now you know that Mavericks was likely causing the issue.
Can't set up new Airport Express
