[tridentinecanon]

Disclaimer: I've tried to solve this problem so many times today, often my doing the same thing many times over, that I could be classified as insane by now. Read with scrutiny.

This looks like it's going to be a problem for a lot of people, so I figured I better just head things off right now. Plus, I need to vent. I hope Apple comes out with a solution to speed things up here and make them more stable. IMO, this is just unacceptable.

To start, as of today, I own, in my home network, the following:

-1 1TB TC
-1 AE Flat
-1 AE Dome
-3 AXs

Needless to say, when I got my TC this afternoon, I was so excited. It was going to be my new WDS Main base station. I unplugged my AE Flat, set it aside, and hooked up the TC to my cable modem. It connects to the internet just great. (Whoopdydoo!)

Now, here's the problem: The darn thing just won't connect or work with any of my other devices. Between all of it, I must have at least $1000 worth of Apple-only brand network devices in my home, and the newest, latest, and greatest of them all - the $500+ TC - won't connect properly to the other Apple devices. I'm not going to get into specifics here, since it's late and I'll have more time to elaborate tomorrow, but in short, I just don't know what to say when my Airport Utility (i.e. wireless utility) essentially leads me down a path that only ends in setting up my wireless devices to connect to each other via ethernet (i.e. wires). (I mean, there's irony, and then there's irony.)

Forget Airport Utility here, as it's "ease of use" is out the window in this situation. (I won't even get into the fun-filled, sets-itself-up, wizardly walk-through feature, which does more harm than good.) I found the most promising solution to my problem here, yet it requires turning on and setting up each device one-at-a-time, and between each one, quitting and restarting Airport Utility. I mean, come on. It's late, I've been at it for hours, and I won't get to this until tomorrow morning. Even then, who's to say it's going to work for me, or who can tell me how long it's going to take. Is this really what Apple had in store for this device?

I love my TC. The concept of it is perfect for me. I wish Apple was selling these things six months ago. I just want mine to work the way it is advertised. I'll post an update tomorrow on my attempt the follow the procedure in the link. If anyone else has had trouble, or has not had trouble, setting up their WDS, I'd appreciate any comments. In the meantime, I hope that I didn't wear-out the reset buttons on all of my Airport devices today.

[tridentinecanon]

Alright, I'm currently in the process of waiting for a very long time for my AE Flat, the first device I setup after the TC, to "pop-up" in Airport Utility. It's been about ten minutes so far, but this supposedly takes a really really really...really long time. We'll see if anything happens.

Here's a detailed list of the problems I've encountered so far:

- I have all my devices off. I do a hard reset on the TC. Then, while connected to the TC via ethernet, I then proceed to set up the TC in Airport Utility using WPA/WPA2 security. All seems fine and dandy, except if I try to subsequently connect to the TC via Airport, I get a "Connection timeout" after entering my password. You might think that the first thing to try at this point would be to disable the security in Airport Utility and restart the device. I tried this and the Airport menu in my menubar still shows my network as having a lock next to it, it still asks for my password, and it still says "Connection timeout." Also, after this process, my network only intermittently shows up as available in my Airport menubar item.

- Next problem. There may be a bug with my Airport Utility. I don't know. I have yet to reinstall it. Essentially, what is happening is that it refuses to allow me to set up any type of extended network. If I try using the setup assistant, it leads me down the primrose path only to tell me halfway through that the only way to extend my network is via ethernet. I know that an option is missing along the way because I originally set up my network to be a WDS network with the assistant before getting TC. The real difficulty comes in in that even if I try to bypass the assistant, and set up everything manually, I run into a problem with the WDS configuration. Specifically, if I set up my TC as my WDS Main, and enter in all my future/potential WDS remotes and relays in the TC's settings in the Utility, it all seems futile because just trying to set up the first device, in this case, my AE Flat, is hap-hazardous at best. Here's why: If I select for the AE to participate in a WDS network, it still asks me to enter a network name and setup security. I've tried entering the same network name and security options as my TC, and I've even tried leaving them at the defaults. In either situation, I get the same futile result: the AE won't connect to my TC or even appear under the Airport Utility list. (Now granted, I haven't waited forever and a day for this, or anything, to happen - I've only waited 5 minutes or so each time - but for now, it hasn't worked.) What am I to enter in these fields? Shouldn't it be asking my the name of the WDS network I want to join? This leads me to my next problem...

- Not that I can connect to my TC's network anyways at this point, but even if I try, I don't know if I corrupted it further by trying to add the AE by manually entering in the network name, security, etc. In any event, I still can't join my newly-created network. If I leave the AE's settings here at their default, I get a new wireless network that pops up in the Airport menubar item (apparently the AE's), which I am able to join, but which, in joining, does not help to reveal the AE in Airport Utility.

After all this, I simply reset everything and start from scratch, but I'm running out of options here...

A phone call to Apple? I have AppleCare on my MBP...

(By the way, since typing this, my AE has still not appeared in the Utility.)

[tridentinecanon]

Update:

After speaking with three (3) customer support agents, Apple was finally able to help me solve this problem over the phone. Their "solution" was to just use an extended network and avoid the WDS network altogether.

This meant that I have to throw away my AE Dome, since it basically doesn't have the option to use an extended network.

I am interested in knowing if the new Airport Utility update would have overcome this problem, but at this point I'm so sick of dealing with it that I'm already listing my Dome on eBay.

[ghporter]

Is an "extended network" another term for a network that allows roaming? As in the SSID becomes an "ESSID", all the access points have the same ESSID, they're on different channels and they are all wired to a central router? I think you can make that work with your Dome by setting it to bridge mode.

If it means something different, I'd like to see what it does mean.

[tridentinecanon]

That's the term Apple used to describe a network in which you select "Allow this network to be extended" in Airport Utility. Apple told me that the Dome would not be compatible under this configuration.

[ghporter]

It sounds like it's a specific thing to AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express units. Pity.

[AppleGirl1990]

how did you get rid of the "Connection Timeout"

[tridentinecanon]

Originally Posted by AppleGirl1990 

how did you get rid of the "Connection Timeout"

In Keychain Access, delete everything related to Airport. Be sure to do this under both the login and System keychains (which can be selected on the left side of the window; if they are not visible, click on the small arrow on the bottom left side of the window).

It's a headache, I know. Both Keychain and Airport are not new products. Apple should have this kind of stuff refined by now, especially since putting out 10.5.

I suggest doing this whenever you make any changes to your Airport configuration in Airport Utility.