Timed Access Control

When the grandkids visit, I set up "rules" for each of their devices that limit access to about 10:00 PM. I always know that it is working because I can hear the whining and complaining from the other end of the house.

As a test, I set up a few devices here to have access ending at 10:30 PM and it worked just fine.

So, I cannot duplicate the errors that you are reporting.

Can you post a screenshot for the "(default)" settings?

Please describe how you are locating the MAC Address for the Maddie iPhone in the screenshot above.

I have all MAC addresses for all devices that I own or use.

I assume that you meant to say that you are using the Wi-Fi Address for the iPhone as the MAC Address, correct?

Rather than deleting all the rules for each device and starting over, try changing the start and end times so that each rule for each device is different from the others.

So, instead of all devices turning off at 10:00 PM, set one to turn off at 9:59 PM, another at 10:00, another at 10:01 PM. Same thing for the start times if you have a number of devices set to be allowed access at the same time.

If still no luck, then the next step would be to reset the AirPort router back to factory default settings and then start over again. That's a lot of work, unfortunately.

If the problem still persists then the Airport Utility software is likely corrupted on the Mac or PC that you are using. Delete all the Timed Access settings on that Mac or PC and try setting things up on a different Mac or PC.

Just to check, have you got the "everybody else" (or default access) set to "no access" or to "everyday, all day"?

If it is not set to "no access" then try changing it to this, just make sure you have your phone or computer set up with access "everyday, all day". Hopefully this will work.

Otherwise the only thing I can think of is checking that the settings correspond on both your airport express and airport extreme.

Setting the default rule to No Access is a dangerous thing to do unless you have a wired Ethernet connection from your Mac or PC to the AirPort router.

The reason.....when the default rule is changed to No Access......users sometimes find that they lose all communication with the router, since they cannot even connect to the wireless network to try to correct things again. The only solution in this case is to use a wired connection to the AirPort router.

Hi Bob,

I was under the impression that the "everyone else/default" rule is what applies to any device not listed in the wireless clients list and so if this is set to "everyday, all day" then anyone can access the network "all day, everyday". I have used this setting for years to help protect my network from neighbours / malicious users and have never had any trouble.

If there is an issue where you can't login there are the following options:

Under what circumstances will I need to do a reset?

• Soft reset: Perform this reset if you have forgotten your password. A soft reset resets your password and disables security settings (Access Control and RADIUS settings are temporarily interrupted). Forgetting the password would normally prevent you from connecting to or configuring the device. If you make no changes within five minutes of doing a soft reset, the device will revert back to its former state. All of the device's settings will be available after it has restarted.
• Hard reset: Perform this reset for troubleshooting and resolving problems with an unresponsive device, or to troubleshoot network accessibility issues.
• Default Settings reset: Perform this reset if you wish to repurpose the device and want to remove all personal profiles and settings first. This reset resets the device to its state when you first purchased it. Data stored on internal or external hard drives connected to the device will not be erased. If you choose, you may manually erase the hard drive using AirPort Utility.

I was under the impression that the "everyone else/default" rule is what applies to any device not listed in the wireless clients list and so if this is set to "everyday, all day" then anyone can access the network "all day, everyday"

This is correct, but it would only apply to devices that do not have separate Timed Access "rules" set up, assuming that the device has the correct wireless password.

In other words, if a device does not have a specific rule set up for Timed Access, then that device can access the network at any time, assuming they have the wireless password for the network.

Once you set up a "rule" for a device, the "rule" controls when the device can connect, and the default rule of "everyday, all day" no longer applies to that device.

Now....if you set up default rule of No Access.....then no device will be able to access the network unless they already have a "rule" set up that would allow them to do so. So, a device that might have the correct wireless password for the network still won't be able to connect unless a rule has been set up for that device.

Where users get into trouble.....we see posts about this all the time.....is that they set up a default rule of No Access without first setting up rules for devices that will be allowed to connect. When this happens, the user cannot access the wireless network at all to correct the mistake in AirPort Utility......unless he can connect using a wired connection.

A Soft Reset might be a way to get around this....but that requires that you change the password, which users may not want to do. A Hard reset erases all the network settings, so the user has to start all over again and set up the AirPort router from scratch. That's a lot of work. Same for a Factory Default Reset.

Does that really matter where I need to set time a minute apart from one another.

Setting devices to slightly different times has helped some users, but not others. The theory here is that the AirPort Utility software may be getting confused by having to do too many things at the same time. Software bugs.

If it works for you, I see very little downside to having one device turn off at 9:59, another at 10:00 and another at 10:01, etc.....but you may disagree.

You might not be aware that if you want to have a device turn off at 10:00 PM, that 10:00 PM is actually 10:00:59:59 etc, so the device will really lose access at 10:01 PM. Apple of course does not tell you this.

You did not indicate whether you were using the WiFi Address for the iPhones/iPads as the MAC Address, but I assume that this is the case, correct?

i do know about MAC addresses and ensuring I used the WIFI ones and not the ethernet addresses.

LOL.....iPhones and iPads do not have an Ethernet address, so it would be very difficult to use that.

I already gave you more information in my previous posts, if you will check above. Here it is again:

If still no luck, then the next step would be to reset the AirPort router back to factory default settings and then start over again. That's a lot of work, unfortunately.

If the problem still persists then the Airport Utility software is likely corrupted on the Mac or PC that you are using. Delete all the Timed Access settings on that Mac or PC and try setting things up on a different Mac or PC.