How to correctly set-up my Time Capsule with my ISP's Arris WTM552G modem/router?

I still cannot see that your setup is wrong but your last few shots seem to show the problem has got worse. The TC does have issues with some cable modems. It is simply not passing packets. That is why you are not getting an IP now for the wireless. The TC is failing to pass packets.

If you have an Apple store I would take the TC back to them for testing. If not I want you to try a completely different setup.

1. Factory reset the TC.

The Factory Reset universal

Unplug your TC/AE. Hold in reset. and power the TC/AE back on.. all without releasing reset and keep holding in for about 10sec. The time is not important.. it is the front LED rapid flashing that indicates you are in factory mode.

Release reset.

If it doesn’t flash rapidly you have released reset at some point and try again.

Be Gentle! Feel the switch click on. It has a positive feel.. add no more pressure after that.

TC/AE will reboot after a couple of minutes with default factory settings and will wipe out previous configurations.

No files are deleted on the hard disk.. No reset of the TC deletes files.. to do that you use erase from the airport utility.

2. Run through the setup in airport utility.. do this in complete isolation .. so the TC will be plugged into your Mac by the ethernet. It is easier to have WAN disconnected to do this.

Leave the TC in standard router mode.. change as little as possible. so it should be dhcp on the internet tab and set to NAT and DHCP on the Network tab. It will be default IP of 10.0.1.1 and pass the computer an address of 10.0.1.2.

You are then going to plug the TC WAN port back into the Arris. Make sure it picks up an IP of 192.168.2.x etc.. it will give you a double NAT error but this is fine for testing. Can you now pass packets by ethernet .. and disconnect ethernet by wireless?? If not I suspect it is faulty or incompatible.

3. If the above works you can try a different kind of setup.

I want you to do a fully manual setup. So in the airport utility switch it to ethernet. Or just plug in the IP address. I have given the method to do this here.

Airport Utility shows "unexpected error - please try again" when connecting to Time Capsule

Use all short names.. TCgen5 for base station name.. and keep using TC24ghz and TC5ghz for the wireless.

This time though I want you to setup a static IP.

Your Arris is set to use IP addresses from 2-100 (did you by any chance change the base address of the arris from 192.168.2.1??)

I want you to use 101 as the static address for the TC.. my pictures will be exactly how I want you to set it up.. except where noted.

Your Country will Chile .. and you can pick whichever wireless channels you prefer but perhaps 36 for 5ghz although I am not sure that it really works. 2.4ghz perhaps will need to be 6.

You can make the DHCP range what you like but you should start at least one address above the TC so I suggest using a space and then 103.. you can go to 200 or whatever. But the important part is dhcp only.

I also think it is good to keep the dhcp lease short.

Something might look slightly different in yours because it is a later model but that will be minor.

If the above also doesn't work then I would suspect the TC is faulty or has a particular issue with the Arris modem which is very possible.

No.. you need to connect just to the TC.

I suggest you do this full setup with your wifi off and after the TC is setup, turn on your wifi back on.

I was going to suggest something much more esoteric, if you have two TB-to-ethernet adapters and two TB ports on the MAC (the 15" rMBPs do), then

Arris Modem <-> TB-to-E1 <-> Mac <-> TB-to-E2 <-> 802.11ac

Use a mobile device (and you seem to have plenty of them) to connect to the TC wifi SSIDs and capture packets via wireshark on the MAC. The Mac should act like a promiscuous IP bridge.

Another simpler option is to use wireshark to capture the 802.11 frames and IP packets on the Mac when trying to connect to the tc24ghz or tc5ghz and look at DHCP packets to see if there is any response on the wire.

If it passes DHCP on ethernet, it should do the same on air interfaces. I am not sure why it fails without looking at a packet trace.

Ok.. that is progress. What you have now is a working system with a fault.. that is what causes the flashing amber on the TC. You will see the fault listed as double NAT. This is why you need to go onto step 3.. you have at least proven the system can work.. it just doesn't work in the way we hoped with simple bridged TC.. it does work with double NAT.

So up to you.. step 3 might fix it and you will then have everything correct. Up to you.. but you can leave it run in double NAT for a few days to see if the actual issues start again.

Hi Carlos:

You guys had a lot of "fun" didn't you.

What you want to do should be easy. Since it isn't working, you might consider going to a Genius Bar and talking it over with one of those guys.

However, after I went through all this analysis, I'm pretty sure that the problem is #7. The cable modem is configured with a DNS Domain Search Name.

1. I do not see anywhere which DNS server is configured on the Arris. This should be under the "WAN" tab on your Arris configuration page
2. The MAC address (the ethernet address not the wireless IP address) MUST show up in the list of DHCP clients in the LAN settings of your ARRIS. The screen shot you provided shows an apple with a MAC address of 90:72:40:xx:xx:xx. This is within the range of addresses that are used for Airport Extremes Apple-wireless IDs. I do not know if the Time Capsule uses the same MACs meaning this could be your Time Capsule and if it is then the problem appears to be in the Arris (note that the Apple wireless-ID is a MAC address so the terms are used interchangeably). To find the Ethernet MAC of your Time Capsule, use Airport Utility 6.3.1, click on the Time Capsule icon, when the dialogue box opens, option-click on the "Edit" button. This will open a "summary page" that will show all the MAC addresses.
3. The Arris "should" also be using DHCP to obtain an IP address on its cable modem interface. This should be a globally routable IP address meaning almost anything but 10.xxx.xxx.xxx or 192.168.xxx.xxx (there are some other reserved addresses but you don't want to know this.) This also should be on the "WAN" tab on the Arris configuration.
4. The Arris is using RIP which is a routing protocol. (At least it shows that RIP is configurable.) This could be the source of your problems. It isn't clear why a cable modem would want to use a routing protocol especially for the size of your network. I will get to this later.
5. The Arris also has a firewall capability. You may have to unconfigure this, but only as a last result. Contact your cable company.
6. I note that when I try to set the "country" under wireless options using Airport Utility 6.3.1, Chile is not an option.
7. I see you have a Domain Name of Arris in your Airport Utility. Since it is greyed out, one assumes that comes from DHCP supplied by the Arris modem. If DNS (Domain Name Service) doesn't work, you cannot connect to the internet. On the Arris LAN settings remove ARRIS from the Domain Name. Check the end of this post for more info on how to use "dig".

A couple of things to consider:

• If you want to use the Airport wireless turn off the wireless on the Arris. Having it configured just gets in the way of what you want to do.
• Do not worry too much about configuring the Time Capsule with different names for the 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies, the default will work just fine
• Do not worry about IPv6, unless you are specifically using IPv6 it won't be used.
• Your Arris is set up for DHCP meaning it will provide addresses to the systems that send DHCP requests to it, meaning your Mac and the Time Capsule and any other device that attaches to the Arris.
• You have 4 ethernet ports on the Arris, you will want to connect your Time Capsule to one of these via ethernet cable
• The Arris is configured as a router with the IP address 192.168.0.254, this is kind of non-standard but should not matter. Point being that if you look for a router address on -any- device connected to your network it MUST show that address to be 192.168.0.254. (Note, this does not conflict with the information that LaPastenague was giving you. The default router IP address for Airports is 10.1.0.0. But you are not using the Time Capsule as a router)

Simple Steps to follow:

• If you reset the Time Capsule so that it clears its configuration, then only the following 3 steps are important. NOTE: the Time Capsule will come up as an unprotected network so you do not have to worry about the Passwords until you get it to work. NOTE: Use Airport Utility 6.3.1. The older Airport Utilities offer more options that are confusing and it isn't as simple to understand.
• Make sure the Time Capsule is configured in the Bridge Mode under the "Network" option
• Make sure the Time Capsule is configure for DHCP under the "Internet" option
• Make sure the Time Capsule is configured for "Create a wireless network" under the "wireless option. Make sure "Access Control" is NOT checked. NOTE: if access control is on, you may not be able to access the newly created wireless network.
• Click the "Update" button and the Time Capsule will reboot

After the Time Capsule reboots;

• Join the newly created wireless network. If you don't see the network on your Mac, the time capsule is broken.
• Using Airport Utility 6.3.1, Click on the Time Capsule which will open a dialogue box; option-click on the "Edit" button, this will open a "summary" dialogue box.
• Under the "Internet" button, there should be an IP address: 192.168.2.xxx where xxx is in the range of 2 through 100 and should be unique to all systems in your subnet. (192.168.2.xxx is the identification of the subnet) The subnet mask must be 255.255.255.0. The DNS servers should correspond to the DNS servers on the Arris. NOTE: I don't see anything that shows the DNS servers on the Arris.
• Under the Wireless button check that the Time Capsule is "Create a wireless network". Check the "wireless options" on this page, it should show 802.11n (802.11b/g compatible)
• Under the Network Tab, ensure the Router Mode is off. Make sure Access Control is NOT checked.
• If something goes wrong here, double check that the Time Capsule Ethernet MAC address is on the Arris.

If all of the above work

• Open Network Preferences on your Macintosh. NOTE, DHCP is provided from the ARRIS through the Time Capsule.
• check that the TCP/IP button is configured to use DHCP and has an IPv4 address in the range 192.168.2.xxx which is unique, NOT the same as the address on the Time Capsule
• Check the DNS Button. The DNS servers found on the Arris should be here and they should have the same IP addresses as the DNS servers on the Time Capsule.

If all of the above work, then you should be able to access the internet. If you cannot, then the ARRIS is configured to use RIP and/or the Firewall is configured. If none of these next steps make sense, contact your cable company. Assuming the Firewall is correctly configured...

• Go to the WAN configuration on the Arris. Check for the default route (see next point) and the proper DHCP parameters including DNS servers
• Go to the "RIP status" button on the Arris. There should be a default route which is 0.0.0.0/0 to the "next hop" which is the IP address of the next router toward the internet. This could be almost anything depending on how your cable company configured the Arris. This route is sometimes referred to as a "Default Gateway". All packets sent from the cable modem (which includes all the packets that originate anywhere on your network) will be forwarded to the Default Gateway and then to the rest of the Internet.
• If there is more than just a default route there, you need to contact your cable company. You -might- learn something by looking at RIP settings.
• NOTE: Arris may have built their software in such a way as to have more than one routing table. RIP is configured on the LAN in the screen shots you show. The default route may only show up in the WAN tab.

If the above all looks good...

• Look at the Arris firewall.
• if you an turn it off without losing the configuration, try it.
• Otherwise contact your cable company

The last thing for you to try is to make sure that RIP is turned off. Again, the use of RIP may be something your cable company does.

This is how to use "dig". In a terminal window on your Mac, pick a domain name. Make sure you get an answer. The first example below shows the question being asked and the ANSWER. The second shows that there is no answer. Both provide the IP address of the Domain Name Server, which should be one of the addresses provided by DHCP from your Arris configuration.

bash-3.2$ dig junk.com

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> junk.com

;; global options: +cmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 15045

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 2, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;junk.com. IN A

;; ANSWER SECTION:

junk.com. 600 IN A 23.21.179.138

junk.com. 600 IN A 23.21.224.150

;; Query time: 139 msec

;; SERVER: 24.25.227.55#53(24.25.227.55)

;; WHEN: Mon Nov 17 13:02:15 2014

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 58

bash-3.2$ dig nowayinhell.com

; <<>> DiG 9.8.3-P1 <<>> nowayinhell.com

;; global options: +cmd

;; Got answer:

;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: SERVFAIL, id: 7845

;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 0, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0

;; QUESTION SECTION:

;nowayinhell.com. IN A

;; Query time: 421 msec

;; SERVER: 24.25.227.55#53(24.25.227.55)

;; WHEN: Mon Nov 17 13:02:27 2014

;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 33