Airport Express issues

[blasto2236]

Lately my (less than 1 year old) Airport Express has been giving me a great deal of trouble. I have both a main network and a guest network set up, and in the last month or so, the main network shows no problems, but is not actually connected to the internet. All of my iOS devices, my Apple TV, and my iMac show it fully connected with no issues, but not a single one of them can access the internet when connected to this network 99% of the time.

When connected to the guest network, I have almost none of these issues. I pull full speeds over at speedtest.net, and using the app on my iOS devices. I'm not really sure how it could be an issue with the router if one network is working and the other is not, but I'm pretty uneducated when it comes to networking.

Also: my iOS devices have no problem staying connected to the guest network unless I tell them otherwise, but my iMac tries to go back to the main network EVERY TIME it goes to sleep and wakes up again. Any way to fix this until I can get the overall issue resolved?

I know the Express isn't quite as powerful, but I've been using it for a year with none of these issues, and even when in the same room as the router the main network still gets nothing. So it's not an issue of distance from the router.

I'm sure the answer to this question is going to be "call Apple", but I thought I would ask around here out of curiosity. Has anyone experienced similar issues, or have any easy fixes to offer before going the replacement route? I really can't be without internet for the amount of time it would take to get a replacement in the mail.

Edited to add that Airport Utility on the iMac does not detect any issues with the main network (and won't recognize the router at all on the guest network), and pushing a firmware update to the Airport Express via the utility did nothing to fix the issue.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Try resetting the Express, first a hard reset, and if that doesn't work do a factory reset and re-configure.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3728

If that doesn't resolve it, you're likely dealing with a hardware issue.

 

[blasto2236]

Try resetting the Express, first a hard reset, and if that doesn't work do a factory reset and re-configure.

http://support.apple.com/kb/ht3728

If that doesn't resolve it, you're likely dealing with a hardware issue.

I've tried the hard reset numerous times, to no avail. Wasn't aware of the factory reset option. I'll try that when I get home and report back. Thanks for the tip!

 

[blasto2236]

Did the factory reset, set both networks up as new, and still the exact same issues. I can get a connection on the main network to work for all of about 30 seconds, just long enough to pull up speedtest.net and get about halfway through the download speed test before it stalls. Meanwhile, Airport Utility says everything is working just fine.

Switched over to the guest network and everything works again. And for whatever reason, I still can't find any way to set the guest network as the default on my iMac. Airport Utility also registers no Airport device at all when connected to the guest network (not sure if this is normal).

Edited to add that I'm one week outside my warranty so Apple has pretty much told me to eff off on this one. My only solution is to try and go to an Apple store over an hour away and attempt to get them to do an out of warranty replacement. So much for that world class customer service.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Do you have AppleCare Protection Plan on any Macs? Or a Mac that is in warranty that you want to purchase APP for? If so, the AirPort will be covered under the terms of your Mac's APP.

 

[blasto2236]

Do you have AppleCare Protection Plan on any Macs? Or a Mac that is in warranty that you want to purchase APP for? If so, the AirPort will be covered under the terms of your Mac's APP.

Unfortunately I don't. My iMac was purchased around the same time, and the warranty just ran out.

With some Googling, I was able to try a combination of solutions, and I'm still not sure which one did the trick. I disabled the guest network, reset my location, and switched the main network over to a different channel. This seems to have resolved the issue for now.

Any idea if re-enabling the guest network will resolve these issues? It's not necessary, I guess, but I like to have it for guests so I don't have to give out my real password, etc.

Weird thing is, the AppleCare tech seemed to think the guest network shouldn't be strong enough to do anything other than browse, which is the exact opposite of the experience I was having.