I have been running into severe performance problems with the Airport Extreme guest network. I am seeing 80-90% packet loss with packets being sent to the guest network. Packets sent from the guest network do not appear to be affected.
As you might expect, the result is that the guest network is basically unusable.
Is this a known problem? Is there a fix? Any suggestions appreciated.
MacBook Air, Mac OS X (10.5.1)
I am seeing 80-90% packet loss with packets being sent to the guest network.
Sending from where? Clients on the guest network can "see" each other normally, but they cannot "see" or communicate with clients on the "main" network. The basic idea of the guest network is to allow users access to the Internet, and little else.
Most problems with the guest network are a result of users who are trying to enable the guest network when the AirPort is configured in Bridge Mode.
Is the AirPort Extreme configured in a Router Mode of DHCP and NAT.....or is it configured in "Off" (Bridge Mode)?
Sending/receiving with a an Macbook Air. Although the same performance issues are seen with iPhone or iPad as well.
I've run simultaneous packet captures on the Macbook Air and on the firewall attached to the wired interface on the Airport Extreme.
Packets sent from the wireless device are received by the firewall with the correct VLAN id (1003) without loss, but packets sent by the firewall tagged for the guest network (VLAN 1003) experience very high loss.
The normal network (non guest) is not affected by the problem.
Unfortunately, there are no settings to check or adjust in this regard.
If you have not already reset the AirPort back to factory default settings and set it up again, that is worth a try.
If still no luck, you will need to get with Apple Support, likely for a replacement product.
Finally this issue has been addressed by Apple. The latest firmware updates 7.6.7 and 7.7.7 fix the issue. I have confirmed this myself.
Airport Extreme guest network performance
