General Forum

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

burantek — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:55:56 GMT

I was going to post this link in my first post, but it is all Apple, so I didn't...

Upon reviewing the links in it, I think there may be some good info.

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

PhilLondon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:52:06 GMT

Normally you can only choose Extend if your main router is another Aiport station. I'd recommand to use Connect to...

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

madskp — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:48:26 GMT

In the airport configuration tool wireless settings there are som options on how you connect to the existing network.

There is both make a wireless network, connect to a wireless network, and extend a wireless network (that might not be the exact translations, but my configuration tool is in danish) Which one have you choosen?

I believe you have to choose either connect to or extend wireless network. Try both and see if you can get a connection.

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

soundchoice70 — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:35:04 GMT

Hi Andy,

Upon reading your more recent posts, i see your still having an issue..... and I realised you didn't mention doing any set up in your earlier ones...? You cannot simply plug and play the AE ....

Basically the AE should be able to join any wireless (non apple) network, but what you have to do is use Airport Utilities to do the set up. I believe this should have come with the AE and or you should be able to download it from Apple.

Launch the utlities and let it scan for AE devices, once its found your AE you select it and follow the steps to set it up 'to give it a name such as Living Room', 'to join an existing network" and to 'stream music' etc. during this process you will need also to tell the AE what your security system is (eg. a password if required) so that it can log onto the network... so you would need to confirm this prior to doing the setup.. however once this is done it will reboot the AE and you should now be able to now see the AE in your itunes, at the bottom right.

If I recall correctly Apple has some instructions and guides on its website to assist you.

Hope that this is the issue as this will be an easy fix.

If it is your security and it is based on MAC addresses you need to check with your IP provider and they should be able to give you a web address to go in and adjust / add MAC addresses on your router for your network and or change it to a password WAP/WEP etc system.

Trust some of that makes sense for you, I am a bit of a novice myself, but went through a lot of these issues to get my network functioning properly... so not sure if I am explaining things correctly.

Laurence.

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

Puncher — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 09:31:16 GMT

Jandyt:

I hope you the whole of "Kathryn Tickell's Northumbria" last night, I have it stored on my Sky+ box. (thanks for the heads up tho')

I didn't bother as I've seen it before ...................... Northunbria that is, it's just up the road from where I live!

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

Jandyt — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:01:51 GMT

wirralsimon:

Jandyt:

.I have itunes , and three albums in it.

Thats going to an awful lot of trouble to play three CDs!

Have you considered a CD player?

You crack me up Simon!
Thanks though, for explaining CAT WAP and Wep. If you don't have a CAT WAP, your CAT might have to stay out and may get WEP. I am getting wiser by the minute!
Thanks to you Marc and Mika, I didn't realise there was a difference between Mac and MAC! I presumed that because I found a box marked "Allow MAC addresses", then it would defo accept a Apple device.
I disabled MAC filtering, but to no avail.

Sigmund, thanks for the reply. Because I haven't successfully gotten the AE connected yet, there is no option to chose speakers on my itunes box.

Sod off Puncher!

PS I hope you watched the whole of "Kathryn Tickell's Northumbria" last night, I have it stored on my Sky+ box. (thanks for the heads up tho')

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

burantek — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 07:57:17 GMT

In response to all the new posts... all very good points!

I agree that the MAC (not as in "Apple/MAC" ...Andy ) is locked up -I have experiened that countless times w/ friends. How flippin' aggravating!

Regarding CAT'ing... I always setup routers directly connected, then remove them for placement.

I would "can" the canned router!

If you really want to do this right, buy the Apple Extreme router, and then the little AE will be happy!

It would be a good start to changing over to the lightside!

...and then buy an iMac

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

wirralsimon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 06:16:04 GMT

Jandyt:

.I have itunes , and three albums in it.

Thats going to an awful lot of trouble to play three CDs!

Have you considered a CD player?

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

Puncher — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:15:28 GMT

Come on Tulloch - get your finger out!

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

Sigmund — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:26:31 GMT

Andy

Airport Express needs iTunes for remote streaming of music. With AE connected a menu shows up in the lower right corner of iTunes that lets you decide where you want to output the sound.

The sound quality may disappoint you as AE's digital to analog converter (DAC) is rather limited. Fortunately AE also outputs digital (optical) sound into a separate DAC. The digitial sound has CD quality - no less, no more.

Sigmund

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

tournedos — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:45:40 GMT

mbee:

So what you have to do is go to the configuration page of the router, find something called "wireless/mac filter list", and add the MAC adress of your Airport Express to the list.

In order to verify that this is the issue, you can ask a friend to come with his laptop and try to access to your home network via wifi, with your key. If it can't access, even with the correct key, that's the issue!

Or just disable the whole damn MAC filtering, because it doesn't add any real safety anyway, and will be a nuisance every time you want to allow a new device to use the network.

Further up, the references to "WAP" of course mean "WPA" WEP/WPA/WPA2 are just three different ways of authentication/encryption on the wireless connection. WEP can be cracked in minutes, so it isn't worth using anymore. Select WPA2 whenever possible (both devices must support it), and just use the correct preshared key.

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

mbee — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:37:38 GMT

It seems that the router has been set to limit the access to a determined list of devices (identified by their MAC adress, nothing Mac related here...)

That quite frequent : ISPs make that for two reasons:
a) Improving security
b) Billing the customer for a technician each time he buys a new computer/wifi accessory

So what you have to do is go to the configuration page of the router, find something called "wireless/mac filter list", and add the MAC adress of your Airport Express to the list.

In order to verify that this is the issue, you can ask a friend to come with his laptop and try to access to your home network via wifi, with your key. If it can't access, even with the correct key, that's the issue!

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

wirralsimon — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 02:57:29 GMT

Jandyt:

OMG!

Jaff, I know you would do anything you can to help, and thanks for the Beoport info. I have itunes , and three albums in it.
3, 4, 5,and 6 are irrelevant, as I can't complete 1 and 2. CAT the router?? What is meaning CAT?

Andy T.

CAT is a reference to CAT5 which is one of the ways that techie types refer to ethernet cables (or CAT5e or network cable or patch lead or RJ45, they are all the same thing) so CAT the router means connect an ethernet cable from the network socket on the back if your PC to the modem/router which you have probably already done.

The next step is to connect you AE to the router which you can do (at least) three ways

1. a very long ethernet cable

2. buy a pair of homeplug adapters

3. figure out the wireless

WAP and WEP are to do with wireless security, WAP and WEP are simply two different methods of doing it. If your router has wireless security enabled but you are not entering paswords etc that might be your problem. the advantage of options 1 and 2 above is that you don't need to worry about it! You would still be using the router, but a a modem and wired rounter instead of wireless.

Simon

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

Movie — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:53:09 GMT

Hi Andy

My Eircom router would not work with Airport Express, although some routers do.

I did speak to Apple who said the only way to get connected was to also purchase Airport Extreme Base Station (£139.00)

Unfortunatley it is extra cost - but it worked, if you can stretch to it, will get up and running very quick.

Movie

Re: Airport Express, and router frustration!!

Puncher — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:02:03 GMT

Oh well nevermind!

If you're interested Kathryn Tickell is on Sky Arts at 8:15.