Please don’t upgrade your Airport Extreme to 7.2.1
30 08 2007Several users have reported that the Airport Extreme firmware upgrade (7.2.1) released today breaks Lighthouse’s NAT/PMP support so that it can’t associate with the router anymore or start any profiles.
Unfortunately, this is extremely bad timing since we’re currently on a vacation until mid-September, away from our test routers. Therefore, we most likely won’t be able to resolve the issue until we’re back home.
In the mean time, it’s recommended not to install the latest Airport Extreme firmware upgrade (7.2.1) until we can release a fix.
Other routers (including the older “UFO” Airport Extreme base station and Airport Express base stations) are not affected.
If you’re affected by the problem, we’d recommend installing a previous firmware version.
We apologize for this inconvenience. As already said, it’s extremely bad timing since the firmware upgrade coincides with our vacation, but we promise to work on the issue quickly as soon as we’re back home and have access to our test routers again.
Thanks for your understanding!
Bummer, I wish I had read this before accepting the upgrade. Instead of screwing around with installing an older release, I’ll just wait for the fix when you guys return from vacation. Atleast I know what the problem is now and why Lighthouse’s light kept burning out….I’ve been waiting to use that line
I’m still investigating, but it currently looks as if the NAT/PMP service is completely unavailable on Fast Ethernet pre-n Airport Extremes after the 7.2.1 installation (though it works fine on Gigabit Ethernet ones, indicating that this is clearly a firmware bug introduced by Apple).
Since the NAT/PMP service is not available at all on the affected routers after installing 7.2.1, a workaround is not possible. I’m still waiting for some diagnostic info to confirm this, but I’d greatly suggest downgrading to a previous version in the meantime, since a workaround will probably not be possible and we’ll have to wait for Apple to fix the issue in the next firmware upgrade after 7.2.1.
It’s not exactly “screwing around” either, just select the base station in “Airport Utility”, click “Manual Setup”, then select “Upload Firmware…” from the “Base Station” menu in the menu bar. Finally, select a previous version and hit the “OK” button.
Downgrading the firmware is not a hack, it’s a supported feature of “Airport Utility”.
I didn’t realize it was that easy!!! I just uploaded a previous firmware (7.1.1) and it looks like I’m back in business. Thanks!!
[…] back from our vacation and have started investigating the issue that prevents Lighthouse from working on n-enabled Airport Extreme base stations after the recent […]