Airport extreme freeze

Our school has 17 airport extreme base stations on our LAN. Two or three stations will occasionally freeze so they cannot be scanned with airport admin utility, and they stop working. They are not always the same stations that fail. Today we had all 17 fail at the same time, which has never happened before.
To fix the problem we do a power reset on the base station, then it will show up in the utility and start working again. We sometimes go for 2-3 weeks with no failures. Any ideas?

We had the same problem at work. The base stations still freeze up from time to time, after downgrading to 5.5.1, but not as frequent as with 5.7.
I can not believe this still is not fixed. I really hope Apple will fix this soon, even though the AirPort Extreme has been upgraded to a new model. It seems to only be a problem with roaming base stations. I do not have any freezing problems with my own private AirPort Extreme at home, but I only have one there.
Does anybody know if the newest AirPort Extreme has trouble with freezing (especially when set up for roaming)?

Similar Messages

Airport Extreme freezing when accessing ext HDD

My Airport Extreme keeps dropping the connections when I try to access files on the WD 3TB external HDD connected in the USB port.
I am able to connect to the internet at all times using either a newly purchased 2012 Mackbook Pro, iPad, iPhone or Windows 7 laptop. But when I try to access my files on the ext HDD, it works 1/10 of the time. I am able to access the drive and partitions, but when I select files, mostly movies (avi & mp4), it will more often then none freeze up and drop the network/internet connection. It will then indicate in the Airport utility that the Airport Extreme is no longer in range and there is no more internet until I disconnect the power from the Airport Extreme, wait a few seconds and reconnect the power. 3 minutes later the Airport Extreme is back on-line and Internet and network are restored. I have had to do this more then 8 times this morning alone.
The Airport Extreme is currently using firmware 7.6.1.
Saw many posts dating back to 2008 and have tried changing configs to recommendations, but nothing is working.
Not sure what to do to correct this, need help.

Lebruny,
Did you happen to find the cause of the freez up of you AE?.
I have mine connected to a WD 2TB, and when I heavily access the drive, I encounter the same problem you described.
Thanks,
Daddu

Airport extreme freezing w/ USB HD

Hi,
I have an AirPort Extreme 802.11n and i've connected a couple of USB HD, one for my stuff and another one for the time machine.
This was working like a charm until some time ago. The thing keeps freezing and i have to reset it. But i need to disconect the USB before or it would not reset.
I've made few changes like enabling the guest wifi but nothing else. I guess it should not be a problem but it is.
Anybody else had the same problem? any solution for it?
I'm gonna try to downgrade the version of the airport extreme but i dont think that might be the problem.

Tesserax,
The problem is that it only happens randomly. So, to check that i should disconnect the Time Machine HD and not do backups for a while and then do the same with the iTunes library...
ok, the Time Machine HD is not a problem so i can try this today but is gonna be a while until it freezes.
Last time happend this week monday and until now it did not happen again.
I was trying to set up an automatic restart for the Airport Extreme but it does not seem to be possible.
Cheers

Airport extreme freezes when updating MAC access list on WiFi. What can I do ?

Trying to add a new PC on the WiFi network, the control is via MAC addresses. I can enter the new MAC address, and description, but airport freezes when I try to update. The only way I can get back is unplug / replug airport, but then it is not updated with the new address.
Macpro on 10.7
Airport extreme 802.11n 1st gen (7.5.2 with airport utility 5.5.3)
Thanks

If you have not already done so, try temporarily connecting an Ethernet cable from your Mac to one of the LAN <-> ports on the AirPort Extreme. Then open AirPort Utility, make the changes you need and see if the AirPort Extreme will Update correctly. If it does, you can disconnect the Ethernet cable.
If still no luck, your next option is to perform a Factory Default Reset on the AirPort Exreme to clear out all the current settings and then reconfigure the device again.

Airport Extreme Freezes After Soft Reset

Hi Everyone,
I'm having an issue with the 7.5.2 firmware update for my Airport Extreme. We have several devices which use DHCP reservations and after updating to 7.5.2 I went in to change some of the IPs and other settings (using AirPort Utility). After making the changes I pressed update and the Airport started the reset, but the light just stays amber and I have no connectivity. I end up having to pull the plug and do a hard reset. After a hard reset, when I check the Airport, none of my changes went into effect.
I have tried many times with different settings and it always does the same thing whenever I try to update the changes; it hangs during the soft reset without saving any changes. When I downgrade the firmware to 7.4.2, however, everything works perfectly.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

I too have run into the same problem as ‘controls.freq’ although sometimes the light just stays amber (like controls.freq’s documented post) and other times it stays solid green after clicking "Update." No matter, the result is the same -- I have to perform a hard reset (pull the plug) of the Airport Extreme and none of my changes have been made. I not only run into this when trying to add static DHCP addresses (like controls.freq), but also when trying to add MAC addresses to timed access control lists, or (when playing around) trying to change my wireless network name .... honestly, it probably fails for many other changes too.
So I tried what Bob suggested -- but no luck. A lot of effort but no reward. I tried loading 7.4 firmware (tried both 7.4.2 and 7.4.1 which ran more reliably in my environment) and then doing the factory reset, then upgrading to 7.5.2 and setting everything up. But after maybe one successful save of settings, all subsequent saves failed as described earlier. Then I tried a factory reset while running 7.5.2 and ran into the same problem after maybe the first successful save.
The only reliable workaround is to DOWNGRADE to 7.4.x, make the necessary changes, and then upgrade again to 7.5.2. I must say ... if there were some way I could get the system to stop offering new code reliably (that doesn’t even work even when I tell it I don’t want to check for updates), then I’d just stay with 7.4.1 throughout the environment with success.

6th Generation Airport Extreme Freezing During Time Machine Backups using LaCie 1TB Hard Drive

I recently upgraded from a 4th generation Airport Extreme (short, dual band n) to a new 6th generation Airport Extreme (tall, dual-band ac) in the hopes of having quicker backups and better WiFi performance (I also just got a 13" retina MacBook Pro).
The upgrade has gone poorly, to say the least. Initially, I set up the new Airport Extreme as I had for the old one. Then I plugged in the same hard drive I was using (a LaCie 1 TB d2 Quadra USB2 drive that I bought in June of 2009). I decided to setup my wife's Time Machine backup first (she has a 2010 MacBook Air). I removed the "old" disk (the one associated with the old base station) from her Time Machine configuration, and set up her Time Machine configuration to backup to the same disk on the new Airport Extreme. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it picked up her existing Time Machine backup and incrementally synchronized to it (the backup size was about 300 MB). A few days later, she warned me that Time Machine told her that backups were not working. When I went to look, it was indeed failing.
I tried a few things that didn't work, and I suspected that maybe the backup "transfer" hadn't gone so smoothly as it seemed, so I decided to erase the drive using Disk Utility and start the backup over again. To my disappointment, I found that the backup got about 200MB-1.5GB into the backup and "froze." I left it overnight, and it was at exactly the same place the next morning. The light on the disk connected to the Airport Extreme flashed constantly all the time, and I could hear it spinning, but nothing happened at all.
When I tried to stop the backup, it took a very long time. In the logs, I would see a message like this (this log is from my machine, not my wife's, but it looks the same):
11/19/13 9:40:59.276 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Forcing deep traversal on source: "***-mpbr" (device: /dev/disk0s2 mount: '/' fsUUID: 7356274E-D28F-3BC0-9CA8-7F1AA21830B4 eventDBUUID: 99941F9A-AD5F-4FAF-94D2-701C94CA9581)
11/19/13 9:41:57.609 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Total content size: 148.2 GB excluded items size: 17.16 GB for volume ***-mpbr
11/19/13 9:41:57.610 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Found 674166 files (131.05 GB) needing backup
11/19/13 9:41:57.611 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: 152.52 GB required (including padding), 498.67 GB available
11/19/13 9:41:57.625 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Waiting for index to be ready (100)
11/19/13 9:59:22.407 PM UserEventAgent[11]: com.apple.backupd-auto launchd job disabled
11/19/13 10:00:15.103 PM com.apple.backupd[93334]: Cancellation timed out - exiting
Looking at the Airport Extreme in Finder, I saw that it got stuck, either "Connected as" me, or "Connecting...". The Airport Extreme wouldn't respond to the "Disconnect" or "Connect As..." buttons (depending on the context), and the eject button for the Airport Extreme itself in the sidebar was also unresponsive. Eventually, after 2+ minutes, I got a dialog saying "Couldn't connect to [my base station name]" with instructions to "check its IP" and contact my system administrator if the problem persists. During this time, Finder can seem frozen and unstable.
Through all of the above, the hard disk kept spinning and the light flashed constantly. The drive was warm to the touch in the morning.
I also found that when all this happened, I was unable to connect to the Airport device using Airport Utility. I I couldn't administer it, but the Internet continued to work for all connected devices. Unplugging the disk and plugging it back in worked immediately to bring the system back to a working state. I didn;t even have to power-cycle or reset the Airport Extreme.
I tried a number of things to correct this behavior:
Disabled Time Machine, removed disk, restarted machine, reconfigured Time Machine, and retried.
Tried backup on my 13" Retina MacBook Pro and my wife's MacBook Air.
I actually tried with TWO new 6th Generation Airport Extremes. The first one was a refurbished one. I returned it to Apple and purchased a brand new one. Both of them exhibited the behavior I described above.
Workaround:
Finally, I switched the drive out for a spare that I have (an older Western Digital MyBook and used it for a backup. This drive "Just worked."
So, I have switched to that for backup for now, and re-purposed the LaCie as a drive that I use for making periodic images of my hard drive using SuperDuper. The drive seems to work perfectly (and worked perfectly for several years with older Airport Extreme base stations), so I can only assume there's a bug in the USB driver of the current 6th-generation Airport Extreme.
I hope this helps someone else who's as confused as I was. If anyone has had a similar experience, I would very much like to read about it. I will be reporting this problem to apple right after I post this topic. Please do the same if you experience this issue.

As Bob says, backing-up that way isn't supported.
It's also unreliable. It may work for a while, but this forum, and the Time Machine forums, have many, many posts like this:
*"I've been backing-up via an Airport Extreme for* <some number of days, weeks, or months> *and all of a sudden my backups are corrupted beyond repair."*
In my case, it's happened about 4 times in a year. And that's with a desktop Mac, about 12 feet from the Airport, with the exact same hardware in exactly the same place and no interference.
It is very convenient, especially with laptops. If you want to take the risk, see [Using Time Machine with an Airport Extreme Air Disk|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/Airport.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).
But do yourself a LARGE favor and take the prominent advice to keep secondary backups, and update them frequently. Sooner or later, you're probably going to need them.

My new airport extreme freezes

My new extrme stops both wifi and lanports do stop to work for 1-5 minutes every now and then. firmware 7.7.1.
Anyone else had this problem?

Hey Top12,
I found the following article that goes over troubleshooting steps for your AirPort Extreme. Some might not fully apply to your situation, but I would go through each step just in case to see if that resolves the issue (specifically, I would concentrate on the "Symptom: The network connection drops unexpectedly" section):
Wi-Fi: How to troubleshoot Wi-Fi connectivity
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4628
Sincerely,
David

I have an imac g4 purchased Dec 2003 runnung OS 10.5.8. It runs fine with airport off, but when I turn airport on it freezes with the black page, "restart by holding power key . . ." I swapped the airport extreme card with the one in my ibook G4 (purch

i have an imac g4 purchased Dec 2003 runnung OS 10.5.8. It runs fine with airport off, but when I turn airport on it freezes with the black page, "restart by holding power key . . ." I swapped the airport extreme card with the one in my ibook G4 (purchased same date and running same OS). No change in operation.
I am running wifi from verizon. Recently changed from mifi2200 to jetpak 4620 in a 3G location. Ibook running fine, desktop freezes. If I can boot desktop in safe mode and get airport turned off in time. then I can reboot regularly and imac runs flawlessly with no wireless.Have run disk utilities and TechTool Pro rebuild etc, but nothing has worked. How do I fine the culprit?

the power logix thing was really sad. apple changed so much after 10.4.8 that there wasn't a viable way to patch the software.
That statement is precisely why I don't believe in blindly updating the OS, especially in a non-standard machine.
We can't expect third parties to support us forever, and it is shameful to break something that works fine, except that we updated the OS....
I think that any upgrade or modification to a machine or the OS greatly increases the risk of trouble or incompatibility with current configuration and "new" system files.
After all, the component or software could only be tested as far as the current OS version when the component or software was released.
Beyond that, we are all "beta testing".
Following a beta tester protocol, and applying updates to a cloned system drive first, is a prudent way to approach updates, and not only for older, heavily modified machines.
After 10.4.8 and moreso with Leopard, the focus is primarily on Intel architecture, not PPC architecture.
Like it or not, we are all updating to the abyss of the extinction of our machines, unless we can be satisfied with the last stable version of OS that works well with our hardware and software.
I wish they would include the latest pkgs at least with software update.
Yes, having individual packages, rather than lump "OS X 10.x.x" updates would be nice.
This way, one could update as one sees fit. That is to say, for example, fix the Quicktime, but leave my Network alone, etc., etc.
In all fairness, Apple does provide for some breakdown of updates, but I believe there is much room for improvement, especially, as you point out, with regard to the core services portion of the OS.
Until then, I'll leave Software Update disabled.......

Airport Extreme 4th Generation Freezes/Crashes - dropped connection

Hi
I have an Airport Extreme (4th Gen) Base Station which has started to freeze/crash. It will work fine for a while and then it will dissapear as an available network to connect to, this is via both Wireless and a LAN connection (MacBook Pro and iPhones and iPad connect wireless and Mac Mini is connected via LAN) The Green light is still on but airport utility reports that there is no available basestation unless I pull the plug on the base station and let it reset.
I had been running firmware 7.6 and had tried downgrading to 7.5.2 but that made no difference and I am still getting the problem.
I have also reset the base station to default settings and set up again which has also not helped.
Has anyone else experienced this problem or have any ideas on how I can resolve this as loosing my network every 30 mins - 1 hour is a little annoying
Thanks
Justin

I am having the same probably. Just starting to do this 2 days ago. Not sure if that is related to the new airport utility or the new firmware.
I am curious if you are having any luck fixing it? If so, please share some hints.
Thanks
--Kevin

Finder freezes when attempting to access a "shared" external hard drive (wireless via Airport Extreme)

Finder freezes. As soon as I click onto my "shared" external hard drive (3TB WD - wireless via Airport Extreme), finder immediately freezes / eternally spinning beach ball (until I restart finder). Can still access wirelessly on another Mac (not on Yosemite).
Please help!

Ok - for a while there, the hard drive would not come up on the desktop - but now on a re-boot of the compter, or if I disconnect the hard drive and re-connect it, a message comes up with three buttons which say:
Initialize
Ignore
Eject
Sound like the hard drive has died?

Why does my internet constantly freeze since I hooked up Airport Extreme?

I purchased an Airport Extreme for Wi-Fi and to back up my MacBook files. I had it hooked up for about 2 week now and since then, it seems our internet is constantly freezing. Sometimes its just once other times it happens every few minutes. We stream video often and it has been getting stuck all the time. It seems to be the worst in the early morning and around 8:30 at night.
I'm not network savvy but will try to secribe how it is hooked up. I have the airport connected via a modem (not wifi) with Ethernet. The internet is DSL. There is also a security camera connected to a D-Link router that I plugged into the Airport. There's also some kind of internet feed for our PV system that I connected directly into the Airport too.
We have Apple TV, 1 Macbook, 2 iPads, 2 iPhones, 1 iTouch, 2 PCs, 1 Sam Sung phone. There can be up to 3 devices streaming video at once. I thought it had something to do with the D-Link camera but not sure.
We disconnected the Airport today and connected a Westtell router and so far no freezing. I saw some posts about D-Link and Airport Extreme not being compatible but I'm not sure what that means. If they are incompatible, does that mean I have to choose to use the Airport and get rid of the security camera or vice versa??
I'm frustrated because the Extreme was expensive and I'm wondering if I can ever get it working.

On your MacBook: Go to System Preferences > Network. Select Wi-Fi from the left column. Click the Advanced... button.
Under the Preferred Networks list, select every Wi-Fi network that appears and delete each one using the "–" (minus) button. Select the box "Remember networks this computer has joined" if it is not already selected.
OK then Apply.
Select your AirPort Extreme's wireless network in your Mac's Wi-Fi menu, and determine if that solves its connection problems.
Our alarm company set up the camera with the D-Link before we got the Ariport and we can't figure out how to hookup the camera to the Airport without the D-Link.
You may need to solicit the security company's help. Adding your Extreme to your network as a router constitutes a fundamental change in your network's design. If you are now using the Extreme as your router, the D-Link router should be reconfigured as a bridge. Depending on the nature of your security system, it may not be required at all, but your concern about the security camera requiring specific port forwarding settings is justified. Changing your router from the D-Link to the Extreme may require forwarding specific ports using AirPort Utility, otherwise your security camera's video may not be accessible from the Internet. This goes beyond any help I can provide, since your security system has requirements of its own.
Configuring the Extreme as a bridge is likely to solve the problem... but if the D-Link wireless router was sufficient, do you really need another access point? The reason I'm asking is this:
... I purchased an Airport Extreme for Wi-Fi and to back up my MacBook files.
If you need a wireless backup device for Time Machine, a Time Capsule may be a better choice.

Mac G4 freezes after installing Airport Extreme

I have a new Airport Extreme card. When I install it in our Mac G4 (FW800), the computer will not start. The LED on the front comes on and the fan starts, then it does nothing. Is this an issue with a faulty card or the computer, and is there anything that can be done to get the computer to start?

Hello! Unplug all the cables (usb/firewire/monitor/a/c etc) and press the PMU button once on the motherboard then reconnect and restart. Below is a pict of the FW800 motherboard to help identify the PMU button. Tom
[IMG]http://img49.imageshack.us/img49/3729/fw800logicbd4xu.jpg[/IMG]
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Members may reward you with 5 points if they deem that your reply is helpful and 10 points if you post a solution to their issue. Likewise, when you mark a reply as Helpful or Solved in your own created topic, you will be awarding the respondent with the same point values.

Airport Extreme 802.11g freezes/crashes weekly

I have a Airport Extreme 802.11g that I have had for a few years. I use it to connect to the Internet via cable modem, and have both Ethernet and WiFi clients. It has worked fine in the past, but in the last couple months it has started crashing roughly once a week. When it crashes, I can see the WiFi SSID being announced, but when clients try to connect they get timeouts. I also cannot get an IP address via DHCP on the LAN port when it has crashed. Airport Utility cannot reach the Airport from either WiFi or Ethernet when it has crashed.
Power cycling the Airport Extreme fixes the problem every time, but since has happened ~10 times, this indicates a worrisome problem to me. I guess my next step will be to try re-uploading the latest firmware, and perhaps save my configuration to a file and then try restoring the default settings. Is there anything else I can do to try to root out the problem?
If I can't fix it, I suppose I'll buy a Time Capsule, but I'd be happier just getting my current hardware to work reliably.
Mahalo!

I just inherited one of these routers from a friend. It's running the 5.7 firmware...the latest version. I'm also seeing random lockups. When it happens, only the power light on the AE is on...the other two don't flash at all.
I think it's related to overall traffic, because I was running a program called "namebench" which tries to determine the best DNS servers in your area. It does this test by sending 2000+ requests to name servers as quickly as possible and tallying the response results. When I let the program run only once, it usually works. But when I set it to run the test 3 consecutive times, after slamming the base station for over 5 minutes it would lock up consistently every time.
I've read from a variety of sources that this is a problem that began when Apple upgraded the firmware from 5.5.1 to 5.6. The 5.6 firmware was pulled for a while, and then 5.7 came out, but apparently did not resolve the issue. But there's been no update since.
I could downgrade to 5.5.1 but I'd lose WPA2 support. So if anyone from Apple has any suggestions, that would be appreciated. I realize these are older units, but the 5.6/5.7 firmware versions seem to have some issues that really need to be addressed.
-- Matt Ryan

Airport Extreme Disappears (wi-fi and wired)

I've had a Airport Extreme for the past 2+ years and it has worked near flawlessly until a just few weeks ago. At first I thought the problem (described below) was just an isolated incident, but it is now occuring several times a week and sometimes even a few times a day.
My network configuration is simple, I have a Cable Modem connected to the AE which connects to various clients in the house both wirelessly and wired.
I'll be working away on something, either at my iMac (wired) or on my Macbook (wireless), when all of a sudden my connection to the AE and internet is lost. Both my private and guest wi-fi networks disappear as does my wired network, and the AE can no longer be found by Airport Utility via both wi-fi or wired connections. Airport Utility tells me that no base stations are on the network and will hum away indefinately looking for one.
When I physically inspect the AE the status light is green (as are all the status lights on my cable modem), but to correct the issue I must bounce the power on the AE. Once the AE's power has been cycled, all quickly returns to normal, connectivity is restored and the AE can again be seen and accessed through Airport Utility.
I've performed a two factory resets of the AE, but the problem persists.
I'm not much of a network guy and nothing of any substance has changed on the network in recent months, so I am puzzled as to what could be causing this and what to do about it. Any suggestions? Could this be a sign of the AE's impending death?
TIA!

Please post if this happens again. I already posted another thread on this so I won't elaborate here but I am having intermittent freezes of both AirPort Extreme and Express - solid green light, no connectivity of either wired or wireless connections from the devices. Still haven't found a fix! I'm also on 7.6.3 but the problem was occurring on 7.6.1 so I don't think that it is related to firmware per se. There are some threads going WAY back (2006) describing this situation but it never seems to have been resolved.

Officejet Pro 8000 Wireless won't connect to my new Airport Extreme router

I have owned my Officejet 8000 Wireless printer for about a year and had no problems with it. However, my old wireless router wasn't fully Mac compatible so I couldn't secure it with a password. I now need a secure network, so I bought an Apple Airport Extreme router in December.
I installed the router last night and it is working fine on my iMac, my PC laptop and my iPhone.
However, tonight I am trying to set up the Officejet Pro 8000 with no luck. I've searched the posts here for 3 hours and am not finding the help I need. Based on the other posts I've read, I am describing my situation below.
I am trying to set up the printer from my Intel iMac with Mac OS 10.6.4
I am trying to set up the printer with the HP Setup assistant that I just installed from the printer software.
On the first wizard screen it tells me that my device is not configured (I agree)
Then I ask it to configure for a wireless network.
When I get to the Network Selection page, both my network AND my guest network (which I let my neighbor use) are shown on the list with full signal strength.
When I click my network and then continue, the HP setup wizard freezes, and I have to force-quit it.
When I click my guest network and then continue, I get the message that my network is not within the reach. (FYI, the printer is 10 feet from the router.)
I have tried powering on/off the printer, router, and computer at all different stages of the process with no luck.
For my Airport:
My radio mode is set to the most compatible choice
MAC access control is not enabled
Everything is WPA2 security
"Use wide channels" and "Create a closed network" are UN-checked
The channel is set to 11
I am happy to try the "Add network client" thing I saw on other posts, but I don't think I have a printer front panel where I can start the "WPS" (don't know what that is) process. If I do, it's not obvious and not in the HP manual.
My ISP is Comcast (cable internet).
I would really, really appreciate some help! Please let me know what information I forgot to include and I will be happy to provide it.
Thank you!
This question was solved.
View Solution.

First, you should be at 10.6.6, so please do Software Update (Apple menu) over and over until there are no more updates.
From where did you get the HP software for your printer? Was it labeled as being compatible with 10.6?
Finally, you will need to reset the printer so, let's do that:
Press and hold the Power button, press Network button, (on some models, press the Wireless button ), two times, press the
press the Cancel button three times, and release the Power button.
Say thanks by clicking "Kudos" "thumbs up" in the post that helped you.
I am employed by HP

Airport extreme freeze

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