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Need Help With Airport Express

M

Mason

macrumors regular
Original poster
Aug 21, 2003
105
0
I finally went ahead and bought an Airport Express, but I can't seem to get it working. My current set-up is an Airport Base station that connects to my powerbook just fine. I plugged the usb/printer and monster cable into the Airport Express and then plugged it into the outlet. Once plugged in, the AirExpress blinks yellow. When I try to connect to my current existing network in the Airport Express Setup, it tells me that "no new Airport Express networks are found."

Can anyone help me with what I might be doing wrong and how I can correct it? Thanks.
 
Okay, so now it seems I have completely screwed up my wireless network. I went to apple support and did some looking around and it said I needed to add the Airport express to the access control list. I did that and now I can't connect to my airport extreme base station anymore. I pretty much have no clue on how to proceed from here.

Any help is very much appreciated.
 
okay, back again - and talking to myself. I reset my airport extreme base station and got my regular wireless working again. Now I just need to figure out how to add the airport express without screwing it up like last time.
 
Took me a while to figure it all out as well, and I had problems with the Express setup not working properly. The best thing to do is to use the Airport Admin Utility to set up the express unit. I have mine set up as part of my network (i.e. it just makes the network I already set up with my Extreme Basestaation bigger). You can do this by setting up the express unit as a WDS remote station in Airport Admin Utility. Your router/modem plugs into your extreme basesation, and your stero and printer into the express. Fiddle - it'll work!
 
Gee said:
Took me a while to figure it all out as well, and I had problems with the Express setup not working properly. The best thing to do is to use the Airport Admin Utility to set up the express unit. I have mine set up as part of my network (i.e. it just makes the network I already set up with my Extreme Basestaation bigger). You can do this by setting up the express unit as a WDS remote station in Airport Admin Utility. Your router/modem plugs into your extreme basesation, and your stero and printer into the express. Fiddle - it'll work!
Click to expand...

Gee,

I tried setting it up as a WDS, but that doesn't seem to be working either.

Plastic,

my setup is how Gee described it - my modem is plugged into the extreme and my printer and stereo is connected into the express.
 
Did you try reseting the express by holding down the reset button for a few seconds? Can't remember exactly how you do this, but it describes it in the manual, and you know you've reset because the light blinks four times or something. Once you've got a reset express, and your extreme basestation is up, running and connected to the internet, the procedure would be:

Open airport admin utility - you should see two basestations in the list, your extreme and an unnamed express. Choose the express and click configure.

On the first page, give your express a name, then ignore all the other sutff and click on the WDS tab at the top.

Check the 'Enable this basestation as' box, and chose remote basestation from the dropdown. Check 'allow wireless clients' and then hit the select button to chose a network to join.

In the list that comes up, you should see your Extreme basestation network listed. Chose that and hit OK.

Next, on the Music tab, select 'enable airtunes'.

Now hit Update at the bottom of the screen, and it should upload all these settings to the express.

Let me know how it goes - I'm describing from memory, so there might be something I've missed...
 
Gee said:
Did you try reseting the express by holding down the reset button for a few seconds? Can't remember exactly how you do this, but it describes it in the manual, and you know you've reset because the light blinks four times or something. Once you've got a reset express, and your extreme basestation is up, running and connected to the internet, the procedure would be:

Open airport admin utility - you should see two basestations in the list, your extreme and an unnamed express. Choose the express and click configure.

On the first page, give your express a name, then ignore all the other sutff and click on the WDS tab at the top.

Check the 'Enable this basestation as' box, and chose remote basestation from the dropdown. Check 'allow wireless clients' and then hit the select button to chose a network to join.

In the list that comes up, you should see your Extreme basestation network listed. Chose that and hit OK.

Next, on the Music tab, select 'enable airtunes'.

Now hit Update at the bottom of the screen, and it should upload all these settings to the express.

Let me know how it goes - I'm describing from memory, so there might be something I've missed...
Click to expand...

After I reset the AirExp, it just blinks amber. When I open up the airport admin utlity, it only shows the extreme basestation, and not the express.
 
express is actually not!

Apple should rename the Express to something more like Slow boat to china!

I bought the Express and it was nothing but trouble, could never get it working, steaming audio, LOL now thats funny!

I couldnt get it to stream anything except the blood out of my nose.

I was on the phone for hours each day for about three days.
No one at Apple could get it to work.

They said that they could take a return on the unit but with a restocking fee!

I said where could I send the bill for all the time that I ahd spent working trying to get this unit to function!@

They gave me a superviser that gave a full refund.

I will be waiting till the Express stations become FAR more stable!

oh on the resetting, HOLD the reset button in as you unplug it.
Continue holding it in as you replug it.
Wait!
Until you see the green light blink 4 times.
Then it is reset!

I never got the espress assistant to do anything.
And never got Admin to find it.

After a dozen reset and Dozens of scans!
 
The instructions above look right to me. I also had similar trouble getting my APEx to join a network. However, it has worked very well ever since.
 
Ok, reset as the chap above suggested, until it blinks green four times - have to admit it took a bit of fiddling to get mine to work!

If you can't see it in airport admin utility, try initally using the express assistant. Set it up as a new network and give it a name. You should then be able to join it using the airport menu in the menubar and play music through it from iTunes. If you get this far, then you can use the airport admin utility to turn it into a WDS remote basestation as I described before.

Let me know if you have any joy.
 
i found that the airport express works best when it does its own network, expanding the range of existing airport extreme network. i first tried to isntall both of them to the same airport network, but it seems they fought against each other and every once in a while one of the two was messed up and needed to be rebooted.

so, now i have my main base station in network "infinity" and the express base station in network "infinity expanded" - works like a charm, very fast, very reliable.
 
man, everyone needs to take a deep breath and have some patients with your airport express. first of all what type of security are you running on your network? the more security you have set up, the more difficult of a time you will have. trust me, my set-up was much more difficult than any of you have described. i set up a linksys router with a hacked firmware that enabled WDS. then set up my express in WDS mode. and now i am running 128-bit encryption with mac filltering and not broadcasting the SSID. for an easier set up. . . the first thing you need to do is disable any security protocalls you have running. this way the base station and express and your computer will communicate flawlessly. next thing is to set up the express as described in previous posts. then go back to your base station and set up any needed security protocalls. and remeber if you are going to use a WEP password to set the password the same on your base station as on the express. im sure you are all asking more out of your express than the typical user so you are going to run into more difficulties than the normal user. i think the time and effort is worth it. i can now stream music, extend my wireless range and everything and i dont even have an airport extreme base station! i think if you try enough then you can set it up. just remeber to start simple and add things on one at a time (set up WDS . . . then airtunes. .. then security. . etc)
 
I reset the Exp basestation as stated above - it's still blinking amber. However, I did find it at a later scan, set it up as a remote basestation with the extreme as the base. Looking good, right? Except now I can't find the Exp in the admin utlity. Exp Assistant can't find it, either.
 
Hmmm. Fun, no? What's the light doing now? Is it still flashing amber after you set it as a remote basestation? Did you get a little menu at the bottom of itunes allowing you to select which speakers the sound comes from?

I'm not sure what to suggest. As I said, it was a faff to get mine going, and there seemed to be little reason why it did'nt work then it did, so I'd say keep trying. Eventually, when it's all going, you should have two basestation appear in the airport admin utility both connected to one network, which would be available in the airport menu.

You could also try repeating the - reset / express setup as a basestation / admin utility as a WDS remote - process without any security enabled, as per the suggestion of the chap above.

Or ignoring the WDS thing and setting it up as its own network as the guy further up said.
 
Gee said:
Hmmm. Fun, no? What's the light doing now? Is it still flashing amber after you set it as a remote basestation? Did you get a little menu at the bottom of itunes allowing you to select which speakers the sound comes from?

I'm not sure what to suggest. As I said, it was a faff to get mine going, and there seemed to be little reason why it did'nt work then it did, so I'd say keep trying. Eventually, when it's all going, you should have two basestation appear in the airport admin utility both connected to one network, which would be available in the airport menu.

You could also try repeating the - reset / express setup as a basestation / admin utility as a WDS remote - process without any security enabled, as per the suggestion of the chap above.

Or ignoring the WDS thing and setting it up as its own network as the guy further up said.
Click to expand...

I thought I had the WDS ready to go, but when I got to the final stages, it said that it couldn't read the configurations for the Exp. So ... I may just try the network thing.

Apple always prides themselves on ease of use - and for the most part I agree that most of their stuff "just works" - but this is a real pain in the ass.
 
I too had some weird problems getting both my Extreme and my Express talking to one another, in a similar manner as you describe. I think in the end I had to have them both marked as "Create an Airport Network" rather than the Extreme as "Create" and the Express as "Join".

I think it also helped if I set the Express up as a second network first, then added it as a WDS remote base station to the main Extreme. I think.

If you still have probs, I'll send you some screenshots of the settings in Airport Admin Utility.

Neil.
a.k.a. Arnel
 
Mason said:
Apple always prides themselves on ease of use - and for the most part I agree that most of their stuff "just works" - but this is a real pain in the ass.
Click to expand...

I agree. Sweet once it's going, but an arse to set up. However, marginally easier than the dlink wireless access point I used to have. Now that was a pain in the ass.

Hope you persevere and get it going, because wireless streaming music is really rather cool!
 
Arnel said:
I too had some weird problems getting both my Extreme and my Express talking to one another, in a similar manner as you describe. I think in the end I had to have them both marked as "Create an Airport Network" rather than the Extreme as "Create" and the Express as "Join".

I think it also helped if I set the Express up as a second network first, then added it as a WDS remote base station to the main Extreme. I think.

If you still have probs, I'll send you some screenshots of the settings in Airport Admin Utility.

Neil.
a.k.a. Arnel
Click to expand...

I can't even create the extreme because it tells me "no new airport express networks were found."
 
i had trouble aswell, just disable all the security features on your airport extreme basestation. use the airport express assistant on the cd that came with the airport express to find the airport express, tell it to join your existing extreme network, once its up and running you can re-activate all the security features. thats how i did it and it works great :)
 
Mason said:
I can't even create the extreme because it tells me "no new airport express networks were found."
Click to expand...

Yep... I had a lot of that. Reset it, and set it up through the Airport Admin Utility, rather than the setup assistant...
 
zv470 said:
i had trouble aswell, just disable all the security features on your airport extreme basestation. use the airport express assistant on the cd that came with the airport express to find the airport express, tell it to join your existing extreme network, once its up and running you can re-activate all the security features. thats how i did it and it works great :)
Click to expand...

This worked! I guess I just wasn't resetting AND disabling the security at the same time.

Now, hopefully my last question: Can I re-enable the WPA security?
 
Mason said:
This worked! I guess I just wasn't resetting AND disabling the security at the same time.

Now, hopefully my last question: Can I re-enable the WPA security?
Click to expand...

I think, and this might have been part of the problem (only just occurred to me), that I read somewhere you can only use WEP if you have a remote station on your network, not WPA. Hmmm. Certainly, you can enable WEP security and a password - I have done this, and it was part of the reason I bought the express to replace my inconfigurable POS dlink in the first place. WEP should be safe enough for a home network.

You maybe wanna leave it for a few days and just enjoy streaming music before you start fiddling with the settings again though ;-)

Enjoy!
 
Mason said:
This worked! I guess I just wasn't resetting AND disabling the security at the same time.
Click to expand...

Cool, :)

Mason said:
Now, hopefully my last question: Can I re-enable the WPA security?
Click to expand...

Yup, you can use WPA (I do), as long as you disable WDS. :)
 
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