Airport Extreme needs to be restarted to reconnect

[halfmonkey]

Up until this past Friday, our Airport Extreme has been working like a champ. We bought it some years ago when it first came out, connected it and forgot about it (as should be the case.) Unfortunately, as of this past Friday it seems that our Airport Extreme is acting up. All wired and all wireless connection seems to drop but the light on the front of the Extreme shows to be green. I have power cycled all devices and this doesn't fix the problem as it'll connect once everything turns back on but then in a few hours, it all disconnects again. I power cycled everything a few times this weekend and it's still acting up. Instead of now power cycling all devices, I now just restart the Extreme from my iMac after logging into Airport Utility. Yesterday, it went the longest. I restarted the Extreme on Sunday night and it kept all connections but then lost all connections on Monday night. I restarted the Extreme this morning and will see what happens when I get home from work.

Is the Airport Extreme going bad? Are there any signs of it going bad as increase fan noise or something like that? I have to say that I don't notice anything different like it being hotter to the touch or an increase fan noise but if there are any clues that my Extreme has died, I would appreciate the tip.

Does anybody know if it's possible to take the Extreme to my local Apple store and have them check it to see if it's still in good working condition or does Apple not do anything like this except try and help you trouble shoot the problem?

 

[Altemose]

Is the Airport Extreme going bad? Are there any signs of it going bad as increase fan noise or something like that? I have to say that I don't notice anything different like it being hotter to the touch or an increase fan noise but if there are any clues that my Extreme has died, I would appreciate the tip.

The fact that it is still accessible in AirPort Utility indicates that it is a issue with the routing portion of your network. Can you report back on whether the AirPort is in DHCP & NAT mode or in bridge mode? You can check this by going to AirPort Utility --> Network --> Router Mode.

 

[halfmonkey]

The fact that it is still accessible in AirPort Utility indicates that it is a issue with the routing portion of your network. Can you report back on whether the AirPort is in DHCP & NAT mode or in bridge mode? You can check this by going to AirPort Utility --> Network --> Router Mode.

It's in DHCP & NAT mode.

 

[Fishrrman]

OP:
Just some thoughts, may help, or maybe not.

What do you have the AE plugged into?
Cable modem? Cable "residential gateway" (modem & router)?
DSL modem? DSL "gateway" (again, modem & router)?
Something else?

If your ISP device is a combined modem AND router, that may already have NAT enabled by default (unless you've manually disabled it).

With the AE -also- having NAT, could you be having "double NAT" problems?

My opinion only, but the NAT function should be handled on the device "closest to the internet" (which would be the gateway).

If you have a combined gateway device "ahead of" the AE, I'd suggest TURNING OFF NAT on the AE. The gateway already provides this feature.

I have "Uverse" type DSL, with a gateway that's a combined modem/wireless router.
When I had that set up, I immediately turned OFF the gateway's wireless, and plugged in my Airport Extreme with NAT disabled ("bridge mode") into the back of the gateway.
It's been working fine ever since.

 

[Altemose]

@halfmonkey Is this a flat "pancake" AirPort or a tower style?