Why can't one of my Airport express stations extend my wireless network?

Question

Dennis Hagen Author

Level 1

42 points

Why can't one of my Airport express stations extend my wireless network?

Background:

I have an Airport Extreme cabled to my Comcast router.

I have three Airport Express units scattered around my house.

All have worked fine for many months and all are running version 7.6.4.

Problem:

Recently, one of the Airport Express stations had a yellow, flashing LED and a status of "Extended Network - This Airport base station was unable to extend the wireless network..."

Using Airport Utility, this station displays a connection quality status of "good."

This unit also has the exact same settings as my other two Airport Express units.

Using Airport Utility I instructed the unit to "Ignore" the status, and the LED turned green. But the status of "Extended Network" continues to display.

I've tried a hard reboot of the unit, but nothing changed.

Any suggestions as to how to correct this status?

Posted on Jul 9, 2014 5:32 PM

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Answer 1

Jul 9, 2014 5:38 PM in response to Dennis Hagen

Factory reset the express and place it in the same room as the main router and the extreme.

Redo the setup and see if it will extend network properly when it is working in the same room.. if so, move it back to the original position. If it fails it is due to lack of signal from the Extreme..

If it fails in the same room it could be faulty.

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Answer 2

Dennis Hagen Author

Level 1

42 points

Jul 9, 2014 11:22 PM in response to LaPastenague

Thanks for the suggestion, but apparently the culprit was my Airport Extreme.

I swapped the locations of two of my Airport Expresses and the problem replicated. Both had the "Extended Network" status and both showed a red number 1, indicating that a firmware upgrade was available (but no update button appeared). I returned the two Expresses to their original locations. Same situation after they booted.

Then I performed a hard reset of my Airport Extreme. After the reset, all three Airport Expresses now have no special status messages in Airport Utility and all have a connection of "good" or "excellent." Plus, no red number 1's appear (which should only appear if a firmware update was available).

So, problem solved.

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