I have a really old A1088 Airport Express plug, which I believe is one of the first. The latest version of the Airport Utility for Mountain Lion doesn’t work with the A1088, and requires you to install version 5.6 from Apple. I’ve had this version installed since Lion so when I updated to Mountain Lion it was already on my system, but I’ve read that installing it fresh onto ML is problematic.
This article is not about that installation issue, but if you’re having problems with this step I’ve read that this post by Frank Tisellano will solve those problems for you with an Automator script that will extract the utility onto your ML system with the minimum of fuss.
My issue was coaxing the Airport Express back onto my network after I had to get a new router recently. It was much trickier than I’d expected, but then I’ve always found the AE plugs a little bit flakey so perhaps I was expecting it after all, and just hoping it would be easier.
The flashing amber light of mystery
What I had was a blinking amber light and no idea what it meant. Turns out it means there are error messages waiting to be reviewed, and the only way you can review them is to get the Admin page for the plug up in Airport Utility 5.6.
Problem: I couldn’t get Airport Utility 5.6 to see the plug.
Solution: Hard reset the plug.
This is achieved by unplugging it and pushing down on the tiny grey button visible underneath the plug where all the sockets are, using the tip of a pen or paperclip. While still holding that down, plug it back in, and keep that button held down until the AE plug flashes a light at you. I’ve read it should be amber and flash rapidly, but mine was green and flashed more slowly.
Release the button and the AE plug should restart in due course, and eventually become visible in Airport Utility 5.6. It shows a yellow dot on the Summary screen and clicking that reveals any errors. I had two: it couldn’t detect an ethernet cable, and it was running on Default Settings which needed to be changed. I ignored the first as I intended to run on a wireless network, not cabled.
The problem I encountered was this: no matter how many times I reset or hard-reset the plug and entered all the correct information (that I wanted to use it for AirTunes; a custom name for the plug, and a password; and my existing wifi network and password) and Airport Utility updated the device and let it restart, it would not be able to connect to my network and would become inaccessible via the Utility again, requiring another reset. I got really familiar with that flashing amber light.
At least one of the next two steps will probably fix it
In the end, I got it all working after having made two changes at once to the settings I was entering; I know, I know, you’re only supposed to change one thing at a time when troubleshooting, but I was getting bored and lazy at this point.
1) I made absolutely certain the plug was on the correct channel when attempting to connect to my wifi…
2) … and I changed my password mode from WPA+/WPA2 to just WPA2. This required also changing the password settings on the router to match, but having read that some people isolated a WEP issue with the same model of AE, I thought it might be worth a shot.
I only caught the channel issue by accident when I reviewed the Summary page for the AE before confirming the update, and it’s a sneaky one. The plug had stored all the correct details except for the channel. I hadn’t seen an option to change the channel anywhere in either the automatic nor manual setup pages for getting the plug onto my own wifi network, so I dug around in the other options.
In the settings for extending an existing wireless network (as opposed to just joining that network) there is an option to change the channel. I set it to the correct channel then switched the setup mode back to ‘Join a wifi network’ – the option to change the channel disappeared but switching back to the Summary page revealed that the channel change had stuck even though I was set to ‘join’ and not ‘extend’ my network.
And this time when the device restarted it flashed amber for a few seconds and then switched to a much more pleasing solid green. Success!
tl;dr
So in summary, if you’re having these issues with an A1088 Airport Express plug (or a similarly decrepit model) and Airport Utility 5.6:
- first check the channel it’s searching on
- and then check the password type (just in case that does make a difference)
- first check the channel it’s searching on
- and then check the password type (just in case that does make a difference)
A couple of people have got in touch to say it worked for them, so maybe it will for you too. Good luck, and thanks for stopping by!
Update: I first wrote this post in late 2012 – it’s now summer 2013 and my Airport Express is still going strong, even surviving a full house move and new network setup!
