FINALLY decided to come here for help with my 2 airport extremes

No picture sorry.. you need to click the little camera in the menu.. and select the photo from your computer.

** ok, so using same example as above, when going into second router ( bridged router) th n hit update, this router goes offline as well as my main router that's connected to the modem goes offline.

I think you are over concentrating on what is just minor aspects of how the airport utility works.

But it depends on how you are connected and if you use wireless,, and you turn off the particular AP you are connected to then in the airport utility the main router appears to turn off.. that is not real.. it is the computer that is disconnected not the router itself.

And it is no problem turning off the main router.. the other Extreme as I said will maintain everything for a few hours.. except there will be no internet.

It is important btw to use ethernet.. when you do stuff.. forget wireless as it is subject to all sorts of problems.. to know how things are going, use ethernet into the main router.

Here is my setup.. wireless is completely not to be trusted in determining how the setup works.

I am plugged into TCgen5 by ethernet.

I can do anything I like to all the other airports even if plugged directly into the TCgen5 and nothing will happen to TCgen5 because this is ethernet.

You must set airport utility to ethernet.

You also must have IPv6 set correctly.

So here is the main setup..

Go to advanced.

Then what I need is a scan of all your wireless so I can see actual channels, signal level and noise.. like thus. (you must extend it out so I can see everything).

Here's a couple my shots .....:

Well now it's saying there too large to upload.

Use screenshots of just the area you need to post.. (CMD-SHIFT-4)

But if you are using a retina display you may need to downsize a screenshot.

I just open them in Preview and save it to a smaller size.

So you think I should put both 2.4 and 5 on Auto?

Yes to test at least.. no, long term. I do still prefer to set some wireless channels as it helps to keep things more ordered when you have lots of wireless around you. But you should not have both AP on the same channel.. they will interfere with each other.

Using channels other than 1, 6 and 11 is fine.. often a middle channel like 9 is worthwhile, not to stop interference but at least to communicate with the base. Both 6 and 11 overlap with 9.. so you are not avoiding interference but it can help a small amount when things are not working so well.

You will also see in the scan from diagnostics it will recommend channels to use.. in your case 1,2 for 2.4ghz and 40, 48 for 5ghz.. they are worth a try at least.

As well as change the Ethernet on the second Extreme from LAN to WAN?

According to your first post it is connected LAN on first Extreme to WAN on second extreme now.

from 1st floor extreme I have ethernet (hardwired) to a second extreme on my second floor. (LAN to WAN).

This is correct in bridge .. WAN is joined to LAN.. but I want you to change so nothing is plugged into the WAN port. The link between the two Extreme is LAN to LAN.

This is fine in bridge.

Extreme ( 1st one) has 15 wireless and the second has 7.

Certainly does not seem excessive as long as the 15 wireless devices are not all trying to communicate at once.

Are any of the devices using wireless new? Added about the same time you started having issues?

Sometimes the cause of problems is a client that does not conform properly or is simply not so compatible.

Unfortunately tracking a client that is behaving poorly can take loads of time.. and requires trial and error type testing since Apple has provided such low level of diagnostics.

One thing might be worthwhile.. although the older airport utility 5.6.1 is long deprecated by Apple, it does give a lot more info than current toyland utility.

If you have a windows laptop or can dual boot a mac or even run it on older OS.. Sierra will not work but I can run 5.6.1 on El Capo.. it will graph the whole client list. Although your ability to see what is going on with that many lines might be difficult to see..

I would also definitely reset both Extreme to factory and redo their configuration. Just to make sure things have not become corrupted along the way.

You have some challenging work to get this sorted..

I also think it can be worthwhile using the second Extreme to handle its own DHCP.. but see how you go with the steps above first.

Should I maybe switch them?

Without decent diagnostics in the Airports themselves, swapping is our main tool to discover where a problem exists. In your case this is not so clear.. but still worth a go. When problem moves with the Extreme you know there is one that is faulty.. if the problem doesn't change .. likely something else.

I also have a reserve for a static IP for my DVR surveilllqnce system.

That makes factory resetting a bit of a pain.. Particularly because I want you to reconfigure from scratch.

One trick to get your listing is to use the saved configuration.

In the airport utility.. click the extreme icon and then edit.. like you are going to change settings.

Export the config file.

Open the Exported file in TextEdit.

Locate the list of reserved MAC addresses.. and you can then use them via a copy and paste.

Oh and I also have a bunch of iP cameras which I know take a lot of bandwidth.

Wireless does not share well. Mostly though the cameras should be using 2.4ghz and your Mac can use 5ghz..

If you are having issues then buy a cheap but high power 2.4ghz AP. Units are fairly cheap.. <$100 and it keeps them off your main wireless network. In general I find non-apple clients are going to be happier on non-apple wireless routers and AP. The reverse is also true.. Apple stuff is happier on apple clients. I keep my network split.. Apples for Apple.. bananas and oranges connect to the Coconuts. It isn't strict but when people scream in my household that wireless isn't working properly.. inevitably they connected to the wrong network.

I originally had modem to 1st airports wan and from 1st LAN to seconds Wan. Is this still correct?

Perfectly correct. In fact until you finish the setup .. necessary and required.

Once setup with the second Extreme in router bridge.. you can then swap the ethernet from WAN to LAN.. not before.

In this case you are searching for issues.. so leave it LAN to WAN.. if issues show up then swap.. I doubt it will do anything but is another way to discover where a problem exists.. and there are problems showing up with the Extreme WAN ports occasionally.

BTW get a book to record everything you do. There is enough hassles in this sorting of wireless issues.. very common .. to need a very scientific approach. You can quickly forget what you have tried and that makes it hard when faults don't show up as total failure. Track as much as you can.. being systematic and careful helps no end to killing Gremlins.

however, the 2.4 will never auto go to the same 2 channels

That is the correct behaviour.. If you have two AP (or WAP, Wireless Access Points) connected by ethernet transmitting the same SSID.. ie roaming network.. They MUST use different channels if they are in range of each other. If they are on the same channel that will cause interference. If you go back through all the discussion I already recommended if you change to manual setup for wireless channels, one should go onto 11 and the other onto 8. (But you could also use 3)..

Same btw applies for 5ghz.. they must use different channels.

one 2.4 noise is -92. can't get much worse than that.

You are looking at things wrong way around..

On the contrary, -92db is excellent.. -70 is worse and -60 terrible.. these are negative numbers.. so the bigger the number the further from zero.. in the right direction.

Signal is the opposite of noise.. the signal should be as high as possible.. your previous scan showed -17db which is fantastic.. really anything above -40db is going to work great.. remember too that db is log scale.. -20db is 10 times less power than -17db.. so power doubles for each 3db increase.. halves the other way... The only way you can get that signal level using wifi is very very close to the source. Sound is the best way to understand Tx power levels.. it is exactly the same as a transmitted wave, and our ears happen to be fairly good logarithmic devices.

So the min change in power level that you can actually hear is around 3db.. ie 10times the power.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_scale

Just for interest.. I also want to show you that things are not so simple ever with wireless.

On the router the signal level and speed are different to the signal level and speed of the link at the computer. This makes it much more difficult.. never think that connections are anything other than asynchronous.

My computer is 2feet (0.6M) from the airport Time Capsule.

On the router you can float the mouse pointer over the link and get further info.

So RSSI (which is a relative scale so is sort of signal - noise but not quite).

understanding-rssi-

At the computer..

What you can see is the signal level is completely different.. -41dbm vs -27dbm.. although to what extent RSSI can be compared is a ???

But the actual sync speed is 1053Mbps vs 702Mbps.. that means from the router view point the connection is using 3 streams.. but on the computer is only running two streams.

Please also notice my noise level at -87dBm is much worse than yours at -92db. That is mostly of my own making because each wifi router (or AP) generates noise to every other wifi router. I have a high power Asus RT-AC3200 working in the next room now as the main wireless router for the network. (which is why the apple now conforms to the Asus wireless SSID not the other way around) And it has much better signal over the whole house.. plus a total of 4 airport routers.. and the occasional odd bod in for repairs.

Here endeth the lesson.

You still do not have a problem.

The fact that your router has picked channel 11 and held it makes absolutely no difference with such a high signal.

Apple have always limited 2.4ghz max speed to 150Mbps (single stream or 217Mbps dual stream), and in reality that means something like 130Mbps link speed and actual transfer of something like 60Mbps. Totally expected and will not change in the slightest.

You can certainly go back to setting channel 9.. but remember .. the fact that you picked a less used channel in no way stops the overlap.. in fact wireless on channel 6 and channel 11 both overlap channel 9.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

I see no major issues with your wireless.. and there is no significant changes to the wireless around you.

I just tried myself.. flipped from manual setting of 8 to automatic on the airport, which flipped from channel 5 and then after a reboot went to channel 1. The speed on the computer changed not a single iota. And is considerably slower than the router.. this is probably using dual stream one way and single stream the other..

I don't have as many WIFI devices as you, but here's what I just figured out:

Background: We just moved into a 2-floor house from an apartment and we found that our Airport Express (2nd Gen) wasn't quite providing enough coverage. Speed was spotty around the corners of the upper floor. Rather than biting the bullet on a new router with the AC standard (figure $100+, $199 for the Airport Extreme 6th Gen), I just bought a used Airport Extreme (4th Gen) off Craigslist for $10 to see if I can extend my network on the cheap.

I found Apple's official instructions and determined I wanted to set up a roaming network (2 routers connected via ethernet - good news is my house came prewired with Cat6E cable!)

Wi-Fi base stations: Extending the range of your wireless network by adding additional Wi-Fi base stations - Apple Suppo…

Wi-Fi base stations: Setting up and configuring a roaming network (802.11 a/b/g/n) - Apple Support

The 2nd article (dated 2016) with detailed instructions is wrong - it features outdated screenshots of the Airport Utility and references functionality that doesn't exist any longer.

After some troubleshooting, here's my easy-peasy guide:

1) Router 1 (Airport Extreme 4th gen) - set up as new network (DNS & NAT); connected directly to cable modem

2) Router 2 (Airport Express 2nd gen) - set up as new network (Bridge mode); use same network name & passwords (and security); router 2's WAN port is connected to one of Router 1's ports.

Basically (more or less), our devices connect to whichever router has the stronger WiFi signal. This happens seamlessly because the networks have the same name/pw combo. The ethernet ports for the routers work, so in our case we have a Smart TV and an old netbook plugged in at the moment.

We have around 10 devices connected (multiple phones, iPads, apple and non-apple laptops, Apple TV, Smart TVs, game systems, Alexa, etc), currently split between the 2 routers and so far so good. The network speed has been strong in the SpeedTest app and on beta.speedtest.net, dramatically better than when I only had 1 router.

Do NOT select "Extend a Wireless Network" in Airport Utility if you want to use the roaming (ethernet) scenario.

Apple's instructions want you to set up the 2nd router in "Extend a Wireless Network" mode, but every time I did that my network would totally crap out - wifi connections were erratic (most of the time wouldn't connect), direct ethernet connections were sporadic. I spent quite a bit of time resetting my routers to get out of this. I found that if I disconnected the ethernet cable to router 2 and turned it off, router 1 would function normally again. My hypothesis is that the routers were basically getting confused about the double connection to router 2.

Bonus!

If speed/interference are a concern, or if you're slightly adventurous, you can create separate 2.4 and 5ghz networks by simply naming the networks in pairs - use the same network name for the default "Wireless Network" value on both, then customize the names of both 5ghz bands under Wireless > Wireless Options to match each other.

In this scenario, you could keep all of your low bandwidth smart home devices on the 2.4ghz network and your more performance oriented devices on the 5ghz. All hypothetical of course, but I'd expect better performance 5ghz connections.

(If you don't set up separate 5ghz/2.4ghz networks, you're leaving it up to the devices which band they'll connect to. Apple devices always try to connect to the higher band when available, but not all devices use this logic)

Shouldn't my entire network shut down when main router is either, restarted, unplugged, disconnected, etc.????

No, the local LAN will continue to work.. the system will fall apart but only when all the dhcp leases run out. (Since default is one day this will be a fair while except for the few products on the very edge of their time out).

However..

Whenever I restart or shut my main router, My secondary router light is still green, still active, and still giving off a signal in which the entire house still has internet. how and why is that?

If you turn off the main router.. then Internet is off.. Sorry but your statement is wrong somewhere. This is not possible..

I just realized something for the first time in 6 years...... Yes when I disconnect primary router, the second one does not shut off, but disconnecting the second router ( the one in bridge mode) DOES disconnect the primary router.

You will need to clarify this to make progress.

A bridged router cannot shut down the primary.. it is always the other way around.

This statement is interesting.

also coming out of my main router-- I have an ethernet to a gigabyte switch

Please define main router.. are you talking about the Airport.. and the only thing plugged into the ONT on your side is the Extreme.

Please turn off and disconnect everything.. except the router plugged into the ONT.

Give me screenshots of its setup from your airport utility. I need to see WAN port IP but you can black out the last couple of digits.

Then please do a traceroute to something like google public DNS.

Open a terminal and type

traceroute 8.8.8.8

Post back the response.

Last question first......

only thing I can think is because Im plugged from main router LAN to second router WAN,,,, should I maybe be in the second LAN instead of WAN if its in bridge mode????

You may be surprised to learn that the answer is "no".....since there is no WAN port at all when an AirPort in set up to operate in Bridge Mode. No matter how the ports are labeled, all of the Ethernet ports behave as LAN ports in Bridge Mode......so it does not make any difference whether the Ethernet cable is plugged into the WAN or LAN port.....the AirPort will behave the same.

Of course, this assumes that the Ethernet port that is labeled WAN is actually working correctly, as well as the other Ethernet ports. it will not hurt to go ahead and try to connect to one of the three LAN ports on the second AirPort to check and see if that has any positive effect.

If this does not help though......then your next troubleshooting step would be to power off the second AirPort Extreme completely, and work on getting things working correctly with the first AirPort Extreme....before.....you power up the second AirPort again.

I just realized something for the first time in 6 years

The average useful life of an AirPort router is about 5 years, so that just might have something to do with the issues that you are experiencing. Since weird things can happen when the AirPorts start to head downhill, that is another reason why I am recommending that you power off the second AirPort Extreme and concentrate on getting things working correctly with only the "main" AirPort Extreme for now.

When the main AirPort Extreme is working correctly and reliably......then......can you power up the second AirPort and check to see if things are still working correctly. If yes, then you are likely done. If no, then the troubleshooting process on the second AirPort must now begin.

Ok.. I can certainly see your screenshots now.

You have a fair bit of wireless around you but most of it well below -70db..

There is a significant signal from the last listed Pfxnk031

Looking at your two extremes.. you have both of them on the same 2.4ghz channel.. ie 9. This is not a good idea.. they should be on different channels. (at least 4 different.. but channel 6 is occupied by Pfxnk031 so perhaps you would do better using 11 and 8.

-17db is extremely good signal from your Extreme 5 so you must be very close to it.

Channel 132 is a DFS channel and can be subject to weather radar interference.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

Look up the info about DFS .. it is important to understand if you use DFS channels what will happen.

And doesn't the size and location of these icons mean something within the app?

Size of icons.. the tall ones simply mean Gen6 AC version..

The solid lines are ethernet.. dotted lines are wireless.. and it should show connections.. so your Extended Extreme is plugged directly into the Extreme.. while mine shows them plugged separately into a switch or router.

Certainly don't see anything particularly wrong with your setup.. and the wireless strengths are what I would expect.

So what is messing up is hard to say.

Sometimes you just need to give it a shake up .. I would do what you suggested above.. plug from LAN of Extreme to LAN of Extended Extreme, because we have noted issues in the past with the Airport WAN ports in some situations.

I also think your setup could be struggling with the number of IP addresses it is handling. Show me more of the details.. how many devices are connected to each unit.