Extreme (ly) weird Extreme behaviour

McRumour said:

About a month ago, after 4 months of flawless operation, my Airport Extreme 6th generation base station - developed a strange problem:

Although the tiny green "ON" light at the front of the unit remains green and steady when it's connected to the modem and is plugged in, and all the lights on my Motorola modem remain lit and steady as well....if I should happen to open Airport Utility on my MacBook Pro while connected wirelessly, I see that the green circle beside the Internet icon in the Airport Utility window will turn from green to yellow, for approximately 3 seconds, twice every minute.
I've actually watched and timed it for 8 minutes at a stretch.

So yes....green to yellow 16 times in 8 minutes. (Nothing like watching the grass grow in ones spare time, right ? )

If I connect the Extreme to my computer with ethernet cable - this occurs even more frequently/rapidly than twice a minute.

The above has gone on all month.
I've recycled both the modem and the Extreme...but that's had no effect.

Fortunately - my actual internet connectivity appears to be unaffected except.....

A couple of times the green circles in the Airport Utility window, beside both the "Extreme" icon and the "Express" icon (used as an Extender), turned to yellow triangles with black exclamation points.
When that's happened I'm thrown offline and can do nothing - until the problem miraculously rights itself, after 1/2 hour or so.

Has anyone experienced anything similar?

I've worked with 2 Apple senior advisers; they're totally flummoxed.
They're sending me a "replacement" unit which should arrive tomorrow. But I anticipate it will not be brand new - so would prefer to isolate the cause of this behaviour and keep my "new" Extreme.

I'd love to hear any thoughts.....thanks ahead of time for any helpful input.

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McRumour said:

Hi Altemose...

I have a Motorola Surfboard 6580. It's a combo modem/router. The router functionality is disabled.
It's the only modem I've ever used with my Extreme.
Everything worked perfectly till one day, without my having made any changes...it suddenly didn't.

This is a "shot in the dark" which has just occurred to me....could it be that the issue is not a hardware one at all - but is simply the Airport Utility software gone a bit wonky?

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McRumour said:

Yes....same on my iPad mini and iPhone 5s. But it never occurs on either of them, or on my MacBook, at the same moment.

Also - it doesn't happen as frequently on them as it does on my laptop.



btw: It's not a "flickering". The green circle is suddenly yellow for several secs - and then just as suddenly - it's green again.

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McRumour said:

I think I haven't answered your question correctly....because I really hardy grasp what I'm talking about....all I know is that when I click on the Extreme and the Express in Airport Utility....the firmware I mentioned above is what's shown.
My Express is a 1st gen 802.11n (draft) model. It's dual band - tho not simultaneous.....
My Macbook is on v. 10.9.5
iPad mini and iPhone 5s are on OSX 8.1

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McRumour said:

Altemose....Good thought!...process of elimination.....just tried unplugging it, hopes high...but......Alas: Still turns yellow, makes no difference

Annoying thing is: I'm not sure whether or not it matters. Don't want to replace with a refurb, if it doesn't.

Is there a way to determine whether it is new? It arrives today. I very much doubt it will be in original shrink wrapped packaging.

Apple say they keep some aside for replacement purposes which are brand new
Also say there are no 6th gen Extreme refurbs yet. And we know that's NOT true.

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