crbennett

Q: Multiple Airport devices with Apple IDs disappear from shared devices and Airport Configuration software

We have three Airport Extremes and two Airport Express devices at two offices in town.  Sometime in the last couple of days, they have all stopped appearing in the "Shared" Finder sidebar category (if they had attached disk storage) and they have stopped appearing in the Airport Configuration software on any of the Macs on those networks. (They still seem to be routing traffic okay, though.)

 

For a while we left one office completely alone as a control group, and did all our testing and troubleshooting at the other office.

 

We hard-reset (to factory configuration) all the Airport devices at one office. They began showing up again. Then we began re-configuring them again.  By the time we'd updated the devices, they had disappeared again.

 

So—another factory reset to base configutation for each device at that installation. Then we slowly added in bits of their configuration.  The moment the Airports were given Apple IDs and associated passwords for associating with iCloud/BackToMyMac/WideAreaBonjour (whichever you wish to call it), the Airport Devices disappeared from the Airport Configuration program.

 

If we attempted to configure another Airport device to extend a network comprised of "invisible" Airports, the new Airports were "unable to find" any of those networks to extend.

 

If we reset all the devices without providing them with Apple ID and passwords, they worked mostly as you'd expect. The principal difference being they now won't show up as having been registered as BackToMyMac/WideAreaBonjour devices.

 

One side note for folks dealing with this:  If your router devices are invisible, but they are configured to be configured from the WAN in the greater world, you can use "File->Configure Other" and specify the missing device's WAN address and get that access screen as one generally would. From there, remove all the Apple IDs associated with these devices, press "Update" to save the settings, and they seem to magically re-appear in the Airport Configuration software.

 

In this last state, attached storage does seem to become available again, but only to the Local (direct connection) domain devices. The Airports without AppleIDs will not appear in the iCloud/BackToMyMac/WideAreaBonjour domain, and that's as expected, since those IDs are the means for their domain identification.

 

Has anyone else noted these behaviors, and if so, have an idea about specifically when they arose? Is there by chance anyone who knows of any changes in registering or propagating the BTMM?

MacBook Pro, OS X Yosemite (10.10), Interoperability with iOS 8.0 & 8.1

Posted on Aug 10, 2016 8:12 AM

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Q: Multiple Airport devices with Apple IDs disappear from shared devices and Airport Configuration software

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  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Aug 10, 2016 7:52 PM in response to crbennett
    Level 8 (48,595 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 10, 2016 7:52 PM in response to crbennett

    You have been approaching the problem exactly as I would, and did in the past, having encountered BTMM problems with literally every OS X version. They have all been separate problems bearing individual characteristics, and in some cases workarounds would exist. Having said that, BTMM has been completely reliable recently — which means running the latest El Capitan release on all my Macs. The initial versions (i.e. OS X 10.11 through perhaps 10.11.3) did not work at all. I am not certain which version fixed whatever the problem was, nor am I certain it didn't work for anyone else.

     

    The same held true with Yosemite and even previous versions. BTMM did not work reliably until the "point three or four" release.

     

    Through such experimentation, I have determined that a reasonably fast connection is required. If the connection from one Mac to all others does not meet that requirement (whatever it is) then all you will be able to determine is that BTMM fails.

     

    Apple is characteristically silent regarding technical aspects of BTMM, most likely due to security concerns. No one outside of Apple knows how it works. If you're still having trouble, I encourage you to contact them. After predictably referring you to remedial basic subjects (the two links that follow) you will be put in touch with someone who will take an interest in what's wrong, provide diagnostic assistance, and forward your information to Engineering. If it's something they should fix, you won't know until an OS X point update is released.

     

    Set up and use Back to My Mac - Apple Support

    Get help using Back to My Mac - Apple Support

     

    With all the conversations I have had with Apple on this subject (which were many, involving copious amounts of testing) not once did they divulge any particular causal factor, other than to reiterate the necessity to run the latest OS X versions and the latest firmware versions for their routers. In your case, that probably means updating all your Macs to El Capitan. That is after all the very first recommendation in their Support document above, so until you do that you won't even get to Step 1.

  • by crbennett,

    crbennett crbennett Aug 11, 2016 9:23 AM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 11, 2016 9:23 AM in response to John Galt

    Thanks very much for your reply.  That's been my experience, too.  It was very hard to keep running in past versions, though recently it's been pretty stable—which is good now that services like Netflix are denying service to IP6 Tunnel services (as they can be used to thwart region identification).

     

    And I agree the BTMM documentation is pretty obscure without a lot of prerequisites. Apple does a pretty good job of documenting BTMM in IETF RFC-6281 Understanding Apple's Back to My Mac Service. But understanding that document requires a pretty good working knowledge of DNS Service Discovery publishing subscriptions, NAT-PMP, IP Tunneling, IP6 address groups, multicast DNS, and (in most cases) Sleep Proxy behavior. And it helps to know that once upon a time, before the marketing naming folk got hold of it, BTMM's connectivity mechanism was called "Wide Area Bonjour" which is deceptively named because it's very different from Zero-Configuration Networking Bonjour. Oh, yes—and you don't even see any of it until you're authenticated and authorized.

     

    Dear heavens—I don't even want to think back to when they changed everything around mDNSResponder. That was a bleak time.  :-)

     

    Fortunately, you're spot on about being up to date with the releases.  The last couple of point releases of El Capitan have been pretty solid. That's the main reason all our systems do run the latest point release unless there's a serious deal-breaker in them.  No developer releases or public betas anywhere in the offices right now, thank goodness.

     

    Thank you for the links to the Apple Support documents.  I'll run through them and make sure I've got all the bases covered before I start in on the support team.

     

    The thing that puzzles me most about this is that it didn't arise with the installation of any updates.  I've checked all the Airport firmwares—they haven't changed since the last releases we knew about. No updates on the Macs or i...  wait. There was just a security release on iPhone about a week ago, wasn't there?  But surely it can't be that.

     

    Okay—time to turn off everybody's iPhones. (I'm doubtful, because the problem arises without any wireless connections established, but….)

     

    Thank you!

  • by John Galt,

    John Galt John Galt Aug 11, 2016 6:48 PM in response to crbennett
    Level 8 (48,595 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 11, 2016 6:48 PM in response to crbennett

    And it helps to know that once upon a time, before the marketing naming folk got hold of it, BTMM's connectivity mechanism was called "Wide Area Bonjour" which is deceptively named because it's very different from Zero-Configuration Networking Bonjour.

     

    One of the most frustrating aspects of troubleshooting BTMM was getting others to comprehend the distinction between the two. You can't even begin to troubleshoot an issue until you establish some fundamental, mutual understanding of the technology involved. I suppose Apple would prefer to keep things simple for end users by using the same terminology for two very different connection methods. That's great... as long as everything works. When it doesn't, it just impedes communication.

     

    For what it's worth "local Bonjour" (as opposed to "Wide Area Bonjour") was never a problem with my systems. In fact, the crux of most of my BTMM issues was wake for network access from outside the LAN, which as you know requires the Sleep Proxy Service to run on the routers serving the sleeping Macs. Although Apple's Support document suggests one option is to set those Macs to "never sleep" I do not consider that an acceptable option.

     

    Dear heavens—I don't even want to think back to when they changed everything around mDNSResponder. That was a bleak time.  :-)

     

    It certainly was. I fear the day Apple takes another stab at discoveryd. How it got past beta testing is anyone's guess.

     

    The iPhones ought to have nothing to do with BTMM, but stranger things have happened. Sign out of iCloud / sign in again? Maybe. Who knows. That's what I mean about the opaque nature of iCloud account security.

  • by Paul Levin,

    Paul Levin Paul Levin Aug 12, 2016 10:59 AM in response to crbennett
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 12, 2016 10:59 AM in response to crbennett

    Will add that I too have this issue and have observed the same behavior you are reporting.

     

    I opened a case with Applecare but the tech doesn't seem to be getting/or accepting that it's a BTMM issue yet. We'll see how it plays out, hopefull...?

  • by crbennett,

    crbennett crbennett Aug 12, 2016 10:59 AM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 12, 2016 10:59 AM in response to John Galt

    For what it's worth "local Bonjour" (as opposed to "Wide Area Bonjour") was never a problem with my systems. In fact, the crux of most of my BTMM issues was wake for network access from outside the LAN, which as you know requires the Sleep Proxy Service to run on the routers serving the sleeping Macs. Although Apple's Support document suggests one option is to set those Macs to "never sleep" I do not consider that an acceptable option.

     

    Yes!  Precisely what we had to do—whether a desktop or laptop.  Worse—machines waking up on the LAN would see their own name on their Sleep Proxy and decide there was already a machine with that name, so they should rename themselves.  Wow, that was annoying. :-)  I ended up writing watchdog cron jobs to check every half hour or so whether a machine needed to reset its own name.

     

    The iPhones ought to have nothing to do with BTMM, but stranger things have happened. Sign out of iCloud / sign in again? Maybe. Who knows. That's what I mean about the opaque nature of iCloud account security.

     

    That was worth a try, so I logged out of iCloud and logged back in at one office this morning. No change in behavior. I've also tried configuring the Airports with iCloud credentials but then removed their external disks.  Again nothing.

     

    Agreed that the iPhones shouldn't have anything to do with the BTMM, but the Airports disappear from the iPhone's Airport Utility as well when the Airports are given credentials. Airport Configuration Service is something I've not seen documented, but I have the vague impression it's done over Link-local IP6 by preference. Maybe it's time to fire up Wireshark. I've never looked closely at the insides of the Neighbor Discovery packets.

     

    I'm using iStumbler to keep up with DNS-SD announcements and withdrawals. It has some…quirks…like popping up a crash dialogue every time one exits the program if the window is sized a certain way, but it's the best Bonjour browser I've encountered that does both BTMM and local.

  • by crbennett,

    crbennett crbennett Aug 12, 2016 11:02 AM in response to Paul Levin
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 12, 2016 11:02 AM in response to Paul Levin

    Welcome to the thread, Paul!  Thanks for letting us know you're seeing it, too.

     

    I suppose from Apple's perspective, the salient point is that Airports cannot be seen or configured with Airport Configuration Utility if they've been given AppleID credentials. Maybe if you lean on that aspect, they'll prioritize a bit.

  • by crbennett,

    crbennett crbennett Aug 12, 2016 11:08 AM in response to crbennett
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 12, 2016 11:08 AM in response to crbennett

    For whatever it's worth, quite a few of the Airport forum's new threads in the last 48 hours would describe this problem.

  • by Jimmy Kang!,

    Jimmy Kang! Jimmy Kang! Aug 17, 2016 1:36 AM in response to crbennett
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 17, 2016 1:36 AM in response to crbennett

    I've got the same problem happening on my extreme 6th gen.

    frustrated at first then now I see it works ok with my apple id signed out with it.

    it just happened a few days ago, I guess there must've been a certain change on apple's side in handling the signing-in processes or something~.

  • by psymba,

    psymba psymba Aug 17, 2016 3:50 AM in response to Jimmy Kang!
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Aug 17, 2016 3:50 AM in response to Jimmy Kang!

    And I have the same problems as well. In addition my hard disk is not reachable anymore. Is there no comments on this from Apple

  • by John Galt,Helpful

    John Galt John Galt Aug 17, 2016 7:32 AM in response to crbennett
    Level 8 (48,595 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 17, 2016 7:32 AM in response to crbennett

    To crbennett and anyone else experiencing similar problems:

     

    As it turns out Apple has been experiencing Back to My Mac problems for a few weeks (since approximately July 13). The symptoms you describe are consistent with that problem. Apple is aware of the problem, but if you want to contact them to tell them about it, do so using the Contact Support link.

     

    There is a workaround: on a Mac, open AirPort Utility and select File > Configure Other...

     

    For each of your Apple AirPort Base Stations routers serving their respective LANs: provide its IP address and its password (if you don't know either one of them, read the Note following the horizontal rule below). Then, under the Base Station tab, remove any entries in Back to My Mac using the "minus" button, and click Update.

     

    That should restore that base station's appearance in AirPort Utility, as well as in a Finder Sidebar if any shared disks are connected to it. It will also restore Time Machine's ability to back up to those disks, if that has also been a problem for you.

     

    If that seems to imply you won't be able to use Back to My Mac until Apple fixes it, you're probably right. Thoroughly diagnosing BTMM problems is a time-consuming endeavor that I have not yet completed.

     

    Apple does not participate on this site except in a very limited manner, so do not expect a reply from them here, or elsewhere for that matter. We will just have to wait for them to fix it.

     


     

    Note: If you don't know your base station's IP address or its password, "hard reset" it and reconfigure it, taking note of its its IP address and password. Apple uses a default IP address of 10.0.1.1, but you might have changed it. The device password is something you provide, and could be (really, should be) different than its wireless network password.

     

    To "hard reset" an AirPort Base Station: Read Resetting an AirPort base station FAQ. To summarize, make sure it's powered up, then gently press and hold its tiny reset button.  Don't apply any more force than required to feel a tactile click. Keep it depressed for five to ten seconds, long enough for its LED to flash amber rapidly. Release the reset button. Then, the LED will glow amber steadily for about a minute. Then, it will flash amber, slowly, about once every second or two, waiting for you to configure it with AirPort Utility.

  • by crbennett,

    crbennett crbennett Aug 17, 2016 8:07 AM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 17, 2016 8:07 AM in response to John Galt

    As it turns out Apple has been experiencing Back to My Mac problems for a few weeks (since approximately July 13). The symptoms you describe are consistent with that problem. Apple is aware of the problem, but if you want to contact them to tell them about it, do so using the Contact Support link.

     

    There is a workaround: on a Mac, open AirPort Utility and select File > Configure Other...

     

    That’s very close to the workaround I posted at the head of this thread. One difference, though: It didn’t even occur to me that might be possible using the LAN address. I have my devices configured for access from the outside world, so I was doing that with the WAN addresses, which I have in our DNS records.

     

    That should restore that base station's appearance in AirPort Utility, as well as in a Finder Sidebar if any shared disks are connected to it. It will also restore Time Machine's ability to back up to it, if that has also been a problem for you.

     

    The shared disks do return within the LAN scope using a Link-Local address, which is (in my experience) most of the utility of having the Network Attached Storage. It’s much less common in our part of the world to use a WAN to reach storage, given that throughput is wildly asymmetric for we rural folk.

     

    If that seems to imply you won't be able to use Back to My Mac until Apple fixes it, you're probably right. Thoroughly diagnosing BTMM problems is a time-consuming endeavor that I have not yet completed.

     

    Well, since we have NAT-PMP still available to us, each of the individual machines on the network are still able to assert their iCloud credentials and participate in their BTMM domain. In the meantime, any Network Attached Storage can likely be moved to any machine on the LAN which is able to stay online and act as a host.

     

    The only remaining problems come in when the Airports are unable to see each other during configuration and network extension, or if—and I’m not sure how much this might be true—the Airports needed iCloud credentials to act as Sleep Proxies. (Apple TV?)

     

    Thank you very much for passing along all the new findings!

  • by John Galt,Solvedanswer

    John Galt John Galt Aug 18, 2016 4:39 PM in response to crbennett
    Level 8 (48,595 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 18, 2016 4:39 PM in response to crbennett

    Apple appears to have fixed the problem some time today.

     

    It may or may not be fixed for everyone, so confirm when you get a chance.

  • by Paul Levin,

    Paul Levin Paul Levin Aug 18, 2016 5:19 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (4 points)
    Mac OS X
    Aug 18, 2016 5:19 PM in response to John Galt

    Not fixed for me, at least not yet. Will keep monitoring.

     

    Thanks for the heads up!

  • by crbennett,

    crbennett crbennett Aug 18, 2016 5:20 PM in response to John Galt
    Level 1 (15 points)
    Wireless
    Aug 18, 2016 5:20 PM in response to John Galt

    Thank you very much for the heads up! I just did a remote connection to the (small) office and everything came up as it was supposed to, so I took the plunge and tried it on the local network, too.  All is working well, everything is appearing in all the places they're supposed to, and all the "satellite" Airports came along for the ride.

     

    John—thanks very much for all the reality checks along the way. It was thoroughly reassuring and no doubt saved me at least one re-install or restore from Time Machine.  :-)

     

    Ross

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