AirPort Extreme - Light is green, so why do I have no internet?

[winninganthem]

Hi guys,

I have a networking question.
So I bought an AirPort Extreme Wireless-N and hooked it up to my cable modem and used the AirPort Utility to set up the base station to use DHCP.

It asks for stuff like DNS information and IP addresses in the wizard but I leave them blank hoping that the process is just going to be plug and play.

However, at the end of the wizard I was left with an amber light and a message saying that my internet connection was not working.

So then I go and plug my MBP directly to the cable modem via ethernet to try find my IP information. The modem works, so this rules out any problem of the modem to have internet connectivity.

It also gives me a bunch of IP address information:
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3053/2873398865_3d7b3b38ea.jpg?v=0

So then I go back into the AirPort Utility and this time opt for a manual set up. I put in IP Address, Subnet Mask, Router, and DNS information into where it tells me to and let the wizard do its thing.

Afterward it says that the entire thing works perfectly. So I'm feelin' great about this except for the fact that I can't access the internet.. The light on the unit itself is SOLID GREEN, but there is no connectivity.

I am pretty much at a loss as to what to do.

Any suggestions on what I can do? Thanks very much for reading this. Any help is greatly appreciated :).

Just a little side info in case it matters:

My ISP is Road Runner/Time Warner Cable/whatever they call it.

I am using AirPort Extreme Firmware 7.3.1, and OS X 10.5.5.

Going into the AirPort Utility to look at the device tells me that it has an IP of 10.0.0.1. (I read somewhere that that means that it can't acquire an IP.. Is this true?)

[waw74]

unplug the modem,
let it sit a few seconds
plug the ethernet cable from the modem to the extreme
power up the modem.

modems don't like to have the device connected to them changed while they are on

[econerd]

Hello

I've had the exact same problem as winninganthem getting my Airport Extreme to work with my Time Warner cable modem. The Airport Extreme worked fine with my Comcast cable modem back in Boston, but isn't working here in San Diego with Time Warner. Directly connecting to the cable modem with Ethernet works fine, and I've tried copying down the Network settings and re-inputting them with the Airport Utility for the Airport Extreme settings. And while this will cause the light on my Airport Extreme to turn green, I don't have a connection to the Internet.

I tried the suggestion from waw74, as well as many other combinations of turning things on and off, but no luck.

Any advice would be appreciated.

thanks!

[winninganthem]

I eventually got my setup to work the day after I originally posted the topic. :) Hope I can help others get some insight to setting up their networks.

Turns out that my issue was pretty elementary like waw74 said; I just needed to turn off my modem.

I disconnected the power from the modem and let it rest for about 3 minutes. After that, I connected the power back to the modem and let it configure itself, which takes about a minute or so.

After that, I connected the Airport Extreme to the modem and brought my MBP near so that it could detect the device. It took a couple tries to detect the device, but after it was detected, I configured the Airport Extreme to operate at 5 GHz so that cordless phones and whatnot didn't interfere with my network.

But yeah, after this wait, my MBP was able to detect the Airport Extreme and connect wirelessly to my network.

A couple of side notes:

As I learned, wireless interference from other sources definitely can mess up your internet.

2.4GHz has far greater range than 5GHz, but bandwidth is lower, and 2.4GHz happens to be an incredibly popular frequency for devices, which can screw with your connection and make your signal fluctuate. The Airport Extreme's range under 5GHz is not that great, so to extend it, you might want to buy an Airport Express to extend the signal of your network, but that's another story :p.

I used to think that my MBP's wireless sucked, but it turned out that it was just bad wireless interference from other devices in my house. I did a little cleaning and now I no longer have network dropouts anymore.

If you mess up at any point and find that you can't detect the base station no matter what, hard resetting using a paper clip is needed to clear bad settings.

Good luck, and if you need any more help, post back. :)

[minik]

So you have both cable modem and AirPort Extreme DHCP enabled? For me, I disable DHCP on my DSL router and let AirPort Extreme base station handles it.

[winninganthem]

I tell the Airport Extreme that it will receive a DHCP connection from my cable modem.

[JayLenochiniMac]

I'm having the same problem. So you configure IPv4 manually entering the IP address, subnet mask, router and DNS server info you obtained from connected via built-in Ethernet? When I renewed DHCP lease under TCP/IP tab in Network, it shows completely different IPv4 address, subnet mask, and router. I'm not getting Internet and Server to light green. I've reset the modem as above.

[JayLenochiniMac]

Never mind. Got it fixed. I configured using DHCP but did the following: Power off modem, AEBS and computer for 30 minutes, power on modem and waited 15 minutes, power on AEBS and waited 5 minutes, then power on computer. But that's not all, I had to leave it alone for a couple of hours for Internet to start working. Slow learner, I guess.

[mich8261]

unplug the modem,
let it sit a few seconds
plug the ethernet cable from the modem to the extreme
power up the modem.

modems don't like to have the device connected to them changed while they are on

well that was easy :eek: after three years of trying off and on to use my Airport Express as a base router, it finally works. I even brought it to the Genius Bar, where of course it worked like a charm. Turning off the modem was the key. Thanks waw74.

[allanrb]

The following solution worked for me when I switched from DSL to Time Warner for my internet connection. At first I could not connect to the internet through my Airport Extreme (AE). When the tech left, I had the Ethernet cable from the modem directly connected into my MacBook Pro (MBP) and the internet worked fine. I then moved the cable to the AE and got nothing. What was worse, when I then moved the cable back to the MBP, there was nothing there either.

I called tech support and learned that Time Warner uses a “dumb” modem, that is, it cannot handle changes in what it is connected to. (I have cable internet service on Long Island with Cablevision, and their modems seem able to handle changes.) The solution, the tech told me, was to reset the modem by disconnecting the power (I waited 60 seconds). When I did that, the internet reappeared when the Ethernet cable was directly plugged into the MBP.

My set up previous to changing to Time Warner was as follows: my MBP communicated with the AE wirelessly, and two PC’s connected by Ethernet cable. In addition I had my printer connected to AE and printed from all three computers via Bonjour.

The instructions that come with AE say to have everything plugged in when you start it, so with everything plugged in to its proper place, I reset the AE by sticking a paper clip in the reset hole for several seconds until the light started flashing. Then I reset the modem by disconnecting it for 60 seconds then reconnecting it. Then I reset the AE by unplugging it for 60 seconds and then reconnecting it. Then I opened up Airport Utility and clicked on “Continue” (not “Manual Setup”) and the utility configured everything perfectly with only a few inputs from me (for example, yes, I did want to set up a network, and it asked me to create passwords). Then everything worked just as before.

Note: When I had attached the Ethernet cable directly to the MBP, it only worked if I shut Airport off because the MBP will only try to connect via a wireless connection if AE is on. So if you have been fussing around, shutting things off and on trying to make this work, make sure Airport is turned on.

Second note: If you have PCs using your printers via Bonjour, you may have changed the name of your network and they won’t work. Just run Bonjour again and it will find the printer and the new network.

[frumpy]

I think I've tried everything suggested and I'm still stuck. My set up goes from my cable modem in to the Extreme. From there, I have a wired connection to an imac which is working without any problems. The light is green on the airport, however there is no wireless connection. There have been intermittent moments when my iphone or macbook did find the wireless connection, but was still unable to connect to any sites or retrieve email. Now, nothing is finding the wireless connection at all.

Thanks!

[Cougarcat]

I'm having a similar problem. My airport express is blinking amber and refuses to connect to the internet. Connecting directly from the wall to my computer (I'm in a dorm) works fine. Yesterday (and all last year) it worked fine, so I have no idea why it has suddenly decided not to work. In network diagnostics I get green lights all the way up to "Internet," where it's amber. I've tried the hard reset and a factory reset, and Im going to try unplugging it and leave it alone for a few hours...