garfield81

Q: Airport Extreme freezing/crashing randomly

I have an Airport Extreme (5th gen) currently running FW 7.6.4. It was working fine until about a week ago when it started dropping Wifi and Wired connections. None of the wifi devices (iPhone, iPad, MacBook, Android) are able to see the Wifi network and even a hard wired computer is not able to connect to the internet nor connect to the airport using Airport Utility. The light on the Airport Extreme is always green and the only way to recover is reboot the router. This has happened probably around 5 times now since last week. Does this mean my hardware is toast and I need a router?

Posted on Jul 16, 2015 10:48 AM

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Q: Airport Extreme freezing/crashing randomly

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  • by Tesserax,

    Tesserax Tesserax Jul 16, 2015 2:44 PM in response to garfield81
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    Jul 16, 2015 2:44 PM in response to garfield81

    The light on the Airport Extreme is always green and the only way to recover is reboot the router. This has happened probably around 5 times now since last week. Does this mean my hardware is toast and I need a router?

    Possibly. Since the AirPort Utility cannot find it when connected by Ethernet it would rule out Wi-Fi interference. If you haven't tried already, I would recommend that you perform a "factory default" reset on your AirPort Extreme to see if this solves the problem. If not, it may be possible that the device is defective.

  • by garfield81,

    garfield81 garfield81 Jul 16, 2015 5:13 PM in response to Tesserax
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 16, 2015 5:13 PM in response to Tesserax

    Sorry I forgot to mention that I had tried the "factory default" reset and re-configured it but still ran into the issue. I had read about someone downgrading to 7.6.1 so I have just done that and so far no issues but it's too soon to tell.

  • by Tesserax,

    Tesserax Tesserax Jul 16, 2015 7:04 PM in response to garfield81
    Level 9 (54,652 points)
    Wireless
    Jul 16, 2015 7:04 PM in response to garfield81

    Please keep us posted if the downgrade in firmware resolves the issue or not. If not, did you happen to upgrade any of your Macs to OS X Yosemite within the last week or so?

  • by garfield81,

    garfield81 garfield81 Jul 17, 2015 10:01 AM in response to Tesserax
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 17, 2015 10:01 AM in response to Tesserax

    So far the downgraded firmware has been holding up well. I had updated my Mac to 10.10.4 the week before last.

  • by Tesserax,

    Tesserax Tesserax Jul 17, 2015 1:33 PM in response to garfield81
    Level 9 (54,652 points)
    Wireless
    Jul 17, 2015 1:33 PM in response to garfield81

    Thanks for the update. I'm glad it's still working for you. I asked about OS X Yosemite as having it running on network clients have been somewhat problematic, network-wise. Supposedly, the latest update (10.10.4) which you have, was supposed to resolve some of those wireless connectivity problems.

  • by garfield81,

    garfield81 garfield81 Jul 21, 2015 1:38 PM in response to Tesserax
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    Jul 21, 2015 1:38 PM in response to Tesserax

    No issues so far with the downgraded firmware so should I be running that from now on and not upgrade? As it doesn't look like Apple will release a new firmware for the 5th gen.

  • by Tesserax,

    Tesserax Tesserax Jul 21, 2015 3:10 PM in response to garfield81
    Level 9 (54,652 points)
    Wireless
    Jul 21, 2015 3:10 PM in response to garfield81

    As long as its working for you I would say yes, you should stay with the downgraded firmware.

  • by Darusan,

    Darusan Darusan Jul 24, 2015 3:03 AM in response to garfield81
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    Jul 24, 2015 3:03 AM in response to garfield81

    I am having an identical problem with an older (flat) Airport Extreme.  Is resetting and downgrading my best option?

  • by Tesserax,

    Tesserax Tesserax Jul 24, 2015 8:11 AM in response to Darusan
    Level 9 (54,652 points)
    Wireless
    Jul 24, 2015 8:11 AM in response to Darusan

    The 5th generation Extreme is also "an older (flat)" model. Resetting would be you first option. If that still doesn't resolve the problem, you can try downgrading the firmware.

  • by garfield81,

    garfield81 garfield81 Jul 31, 2015 12:07 PM in response to garfield81
    Level 1 (0 points)
    Jul 31, 2015 12:07 PM in response to garfield81

    Update: I re-upgraded my airport to the latest firmware but this time I disabled IPv6 by changing it to "Link-local only" based on some other threads I read here. It's been a week and so far the airport hasn't crashed and internet surfing (DNS resolutions) seem to be faster.