Below in blue is the original prolem and post but it's not as rosy as I thought.

According to the Airport Express manual, I should be able to plug the express into my extreme network and add speakers. I can get everything going but if I want to have both my g5 imacs and the interweb, which is the extreme network connected and still run the speakers from the express station, I cannot do it.

When I try to play the speakers, then my extreme network cuts out. I can only have one or the other.

I'm not sure why this is happening, is there some other firewall stuff that I need to do. In the express manual it just says to plug it in and select it from the menu, but that disconnects my g5 network.

What I want to do is play some itunes that is on the other g5 through the speakers, so I need my g5 network and the speakers plugged in via express. I'm sure this must be possible.

Or am I missing something here?

OK I've been perusing the apple support pages and I can see that my express has to be a "client" or in "client mode" to just work as an Airtunes access point, but I can't see how to do this.


Actually this is getting to be a bit of a @$%#ing pain. I opened Airport again and I could see my Extreme network and Express there. OK I clicked on Express and it asked if I wanted to switch networks I said OK because I wanted to see what options were there. It asked if I wanted to have it join an existing network as a wireless client. That seemed perfect, then it asked for the network I wanted it to join and selected my extreme network. That must be it. It then said express was restarting which just kept going for ages, but my Extreme network had vanished but I thought that was just because I was setting up the express. I closed the window because it said I could but when I reopened aiport, there was no extreme network anymore. WTF.




OK I've got two macs on an Airport extreme network with a router plugged in and it's all working fine.

I'm trying to set up some speaker in another room with the Express station. Anyhoo before reading anything I just dived in and buggered my Extreme connection. OK that's all reset up now and running fine.

I've looked at the airport instructions for connecting to an existing network which is what I want to do. I can see the express card when I open Airport utility, and i can see the default 6 digit hex name for it appear in the menu.

The instructions just say to plug in the speakers and then turn it on and to join an existing network I just select it from the menu, but when I do that it turns off my existing network.

I went to Airport utility to see if I needed to set it up but when I try to that also wants to try and make a new network which I don't want. I just want it to connect to my existing extreme network to play the speaker. I can see the express on my menu so I know it's being read.

But even on my iTunes I cannot see a button that is supposed to be on the bottom right corner of the iTunes window for remote speaker. I have "look for remote speakers connected with Airtunes" ticked in iTunes prefs.

So that's about it, I can't see what I've missed. I've got a feeling it's got something to do with the button that is not there in my iTunes window.

any assistance, as usual, is appreciated.

EDIT: If I select the the express base station in the menu the Speaker button comes on and I can control the speaker. Yay. But it then cuts off my network.

EDIT: after switching between networks a few times suddenly the button is staying there and the network remains. Phew, what a scorcher.

anybody out there?

Is this what your network looks like? (I find that a visual aid helps more than words in this situation)

Or is the Airport Express connecting via ethernet?


Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

yes, that's it

I just realised that you said

The diagram then becomes this.....

Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Which means the Express is connected by ethernet to the Extreme. This is going to cause some problems for you. The better way to do it would be create a WDS with the Airport Extreme as the base station and the Express as a client of the WDS.

This should cause no problems at all, if set up correctly (wired or wireless, but wireless would be cleaner). The problem seems to be that you have created two seperate wireless networks, one from your Extreme and another from your Express. I suggest you use the Airport software to restore your Express to factory default, then run through the set up assistant again, keeping in mind that you want to 'join' your current network, not create a new one. You will need to know the network name, security type and password of your Extreme. You do not need to worry about WDS or anything fancy for this to work.

When I said "yes that's it" I meant your *first* diagram was correct. By 'plugged' in I did not mean by ethernet but by wireless.

So Yes the first diagram is exactly how it is set up.

OK, I'll start again from scratch and report back.

I have just reset the extreme and express devices with the toothpick in the hole method and trashed the prefs. I've just reset up the airport extreme network to both computers and the interweb. All that is fine. I now want the express station to join this network but when I open the airport utility it does not even see the express unit. I'm not sure why this is. I have even moved the express station closer just to be sure it's in range. Airport utility scans for devices but does not see it. When I plugged the express in the green light came on for a second then it went orange so it all looks right.

You need to be on the same network as the express to configure it don't you? Currently you are on the extreme's network.

I think you need to connect the Express via Ethernet to your computer before it can be seen. I had to do this with mine in order to set it up on my Wireless network.
I had the help of the Apple technical helpline. How old is the Express? If it's new, you can get help from them.
(The orange light indicates that it is not connecting to the network.)

You should see a network named 'AppleGH435N7' or something equally as useful in your airport menu. Join it. Use the Airport Utility (which should now show only the Express) set up menu to go through the motions to 'Join' a network. Enter the Extreme's network name, encryption type and network password. Click apply. Wait 60 seconds. If it worked, both the Extreme and Express will show up in the Airport utility.

This is crazy, after 2 factory resets and 3 hard resets suddenly my express stations showed up in the airport menu. I could see the Extreme network in green and the Express base station showing amber. It was already selected and I went through all the screens to set it up and 'Join an existing network' all looked good, then it went to restart. However it came up with the following screen. My Extreme network was down and I had to select it in the airport menu to get it on line again. When I checked my Airport utility there was only the Extreme network there.

Every thing looked good until it tried to restart.

OK here's the full procedure i'm going through. It all looks good but then at the end I get an error and my extreme network is off and I have to reselect it in the menu.

The second last screen is the error message that i get. The only other thing I have tried is before updating i change the menu item to Airport one, then I get the lower error message.

After the error message I need to do a hard reset to get the express base station back on line.

I cannot see what is going wrong here.

see the following image for the full procedure

http://xs432.xs.to/xs432/08421/list123.jpg

From the popup in your menu your network "Airport 1" has some form of wireless security, you will need to enter the password / key for this network so the airport express can join the network.

At what stage or where do I enter this key? It doesn't ask for it.