Time Capsule locks up

[Chip Chanko]

We've had a 4th gen time capsule for a few years and it never had any problems. We recently started using the guest network feature and it now frequently locks up. The green light will be on but it will be unreachable from the Airport Utility (from wired or wireless connections).

I've been working from home and notice that this usually happens when the guest starts using it. So it will be working fine then lock up as soon as a device tries to log into the guest network. It doesn't do this every time, though. If I unplug to restart it then it works fine until a day or two later when it locks up again.

My first theory is maybe the guest network is causing the TC to overheat, which would explain why it doesn't happen all the time. I raised the TC on a couple pencils so air could flow under it but the problem persists. The devices that have locked it up have ranged from iphones to Macbook Pros to a new Macbook. Another thought I had was maybe 802.11 AC devices cause the lockup. But I don't really know.

Any other ideas besides getting a new one (or just going back to not using the guest network)?

 

[Brian33]

Huh, that's really odd -- I've never heard that problem described before!

I'm just guessing, but could it have something to do with the IP addresses assigned to the two networks? For example, I have my main network using the 10.0.x.x subnet, and the Guest network set to use the 192.168.x.x subnet. Maybe if you pick the same range for both networks there could be some DHCP problem? These options are in Airport Utility-->Network-->Network Options.

Curious.

 

[h9826790]

Doesn't sounds like a guess network will cause overheat. It's more like software related than hardware related.

May be you can update / rollback the firmware and try if the problem persist.

 

[Chip Chanko]

Yeah I may just do a factory reset on a day when I have time.

I don't think it is an IP conflict because it's set to the defaults for main and guest network (guest is in the 172 range, main is 192). This all started once I activated the guest network and people started using it. But it's very intermittent. It's possible that it occurs each time a new device logs on to the guest network but I haven't kept clear enough records since the guests are on a different floor than us.