I spent the greater part of this afternoon trying to get my AirPort Express to connect to the Internet and share an IP address using a Motorola SB5101 Cable modem (with Charter Internet)... and since the solution was so simple and annoyingly stupid, I thought I'd post it here, for my reference and for anyone else spending an afternoon thinking his AirPort Express is dead.
As it turns out, the cable modem (this one, and likely many others) will only remember the MAC address of the first device it recognized when you last power cycled the modem.
When the Internet went down at my condo yesterday, I turned off my cable modem, plugged my Mac straight into it, turned the modem on, and use the internet via this direct connection for a while. When I plugged the AirPort Express back into the SB5101, I just got a flashing yellow (amber) light, and in the Airport Utility, a notice that the 'Internet Connection wasn't working'.
After trying hundreds (well, tens, I guess) of different configurations, and having no luck, I finally power cycled the SB5101 while it was plugged into the AirPort Express, and voila! It worked!
Never had that problem with any of my other modems... but most of them were modem/router combos, so they were a little more intelligent anyways.
Now I can happily print to my printer wirelessly and share audio to my living room speakers easily again :-)
Comments
Thanks, this just solved my issue with an Earthlink RCA modem. I thought my Airport Extreme was defective since my MB Pro could obtain DHCP when plugged directly to my modem, but the Airport could not.
THANK YOU SO MUCH! This solved all of my issues with trying to set up my AirportExpress with a Charter Cable Modem.
Worked for me. Thank you.
I has the exact same issue. Thank you for sharing and ending my frustration! :-)
Hi, I just connect my brand new Motorola modem with my brand new airport express but the airport express is blinking in yellow all the time.
It probably must be the same issue that you had but I don't know what does power cycled mean? Could someone helping me?
Power cycled means turn it off, then turn it back on (usually by unplugging and plugging it back in).
I did several times but it's not working