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Level 1

35 points

An Unusually Bad Experience

I just bought one of the new Airport Extremes (802.11n) today and am having a very bad experience. For starters, the new Airport Utility is crashing all the time on my iBook. Second, I am having trouble getting a few devices in my house to recognize the network I have created (Specifically the Xbox 360). Third, I cannot establish a WDS connection between my old Airport Extreme and the new one. I am not very familiar with creating and setting up complex wireless networks, but I didn't have nearly as much trouble with the old one. Any help would be appreciated.

14 in. iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1.5GB RAM 60GB HDD 1.42GHz G4

Posted on Feb 3, 2007 5:46 PM

Best reply

aristobrat

Level 1

100 points

Posted on Feb 3, 2007 6:25 PM

I had a sort of similar problem.

I got the new Extreme today and wanted to add my old Extreme and Express as WDS clients (acting as bridges to TiVos).

After I setup the new Extreme, the old Airports didn't show up in the AirPort Utility program, so I wasn't sure how to add them to the network.

What I ended up doing was pressing the reset button on each of them for 5 seconds, waiting for them to finish rebooting, then refreshing the AirPort Utility program.

Both of the old Airports showed up. I clicked on the first one, chose "Connect to my current wireless network", and then followed the wizard. It took about 5 minutes total to get both of them configured and running.

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83 replies

MikeB

Level 2

485 points

Feb 7, 2007 9:55 AM in response to sburnett

Perhaps this MSFT person could say what the specific issue is, rather than a generic "party line" marketing comment ?

I'm sure that Apple would be interested in hearing about the bug...

sburnett

Level 1

0 points

Feb 7, 2007 9:58 AM in response to MikeB

I know that Xbox only officially supports routers that are Xbox Live certified which I'm sure involves paying some sort of licensing fee as well as following some sort of XBL rules.

As far as Major saying what the specific issue is, he responded to my email within a matter of minutes so I doubt he had a chance to look into what the issue might be, but if I hear anything else from him I'll be sure to post it here.

I'm with other people and hope that it might be fixed with the Spring Update to the 360.

Feb 7, 2007 10:14 AM in response to sburnett

I would love to say it is an Apple issue, but it's not.

Even the Sony PSP could connect to Airport Extreme 'N' using WEP (and the Wii could too). The XBox 360 could not connect using WEP . So guess who the odd man out is...

If you read the earlier posts in this thread, it sounds like the 360 wireless adapter doesn't work with pre-N routers.

By the way, I contacted Major Nelson, he told me to contact MS support. Someone already did and didn't get satisfactory results.

iMac G5, Powerbook G4 1.5 12 Mac OS X (10.4)

sburnett

Level 1

0 points

Feb 7, 2007 10:24 AM in response to Samuel Maffei

I'm not saying that I agree that its an Apple issue, I totally think its an MS issue. I was just wanting to let people know what someone from the Xbox team had to say. I don't have the new AEBS yet but from what I've read, if everyone else is able to connect and not the 360 then it is an MS problem.

Feb 7, 2007 12:40 PM in response to sburnett

I think it's an Apple issue. I spent a few hours on the phone yesterday and today with an Apple engineer trying to figure out the issue.

They told me to wait for the firmware update to fix the issue among others they've documented.

I have no problems running XBOX Live on Belkin, Linksys, NetGear, Buffalo, and original Apple Extreme. This is definitely an incompatibility issue with the extreme router.

I just wish everyone could agree on a specification and stick to it. I am tired of companies being "particular" to maintain their competitive edge. It only hurst the consumer in the end.

Huze

Level 1

17 points

Feb 7, 2007 1:44 PM in response to Jamie Green

Can someone from Apple support post an official response? Considering there are over 10 million XBOX 360 owners, it'd be nice for Apple to acknowledge the problem.

For what its worth, I also contacted XBOX 360's "voice of the fan", Major Nelson. He acknowledged that Microsoft does not test the Apple router, thus, it cannot be certified "XBOX 360-compliant". Here's the direct quote from my email:

It’s up to the router manufactures to contact us so we can get more detailed information on how the router actually works. So Apple needs to contact us. We’d love to hear from them!

Duane

Level 10

124,267 points

Feb 7, 2007 2:08 PM in response to Huze

Huze, Welcome to the discussion area!

As you know from reading the "Help & Terms of Use" for this discussion area, this is a user-to-user discussion area. There is no guarantee that someone from Apple will ever read any of these threads... let alone reply to one.

Feb 7, 2007 2:55 PM in response to David Pope3

SO MS and Apple will go back and forth., The N specs are draft so there will be all kinds of interoperability problems. in the mean time the suggestion earlier that you run two base stations seems brilliant. why wont it work?

Huze

Level 1

17 points

Feb 7, 2007 2:57 PM in response to Duane

Agreed. I just hate spinning my wheels without getting any real traction.

Feb 7, 2007 3:02 PM in response to Huze

I agree as well Huze. I am sorry to say but I've packed up my Apple Airport Extreme router and returned it.

I am going with Buffalo Technology. I am siding with Microsoft on this one considering the XBOX and XBOX Live has been out much longer than the NEW router. Also, since the OLD apple router works, it makes me think Apple has changed something.

Jamie Green Author

Level 1

35 points

Feb 7, 2007 5:59 PM in response to David Pope3

Well, as sort of a temporary fix, I decided to drop the idea of MAC Address restrictions for a simpler fix. Using my old APX as a remote base station, it is in a WDS with my new one, and the old one is connected to the 360 via ethernet. This will be set up like this until a fix comes out (If a fix ever DOES come out...)
That way, I can have my WPA/WPA2 security on my network while still using the 360. To prove everyone else that the old APX DOES work with the 360, it does. The new one does not, as of now. I'm starting to be unsure of exactly which company's problem it is, but there definitely IS a problem.

14 in. iBook G4 Mac OS X (10.4.8) 1.5GB RAM 60GB HDD 1.42GHz G4