How to reset an Airport Express

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How to reset an Airport Express

1 September 2010 7,437 views 4 Comments

Will that be hard, soft or factory, sir? If you need to reset the password and/or settings on an Airport Express base station — brilliant device — then there are three methods available to you and which one you choose depends on what you need to do.

Before beginning any of this, make sure Airport Utility is up-to-date as it’s necessary to reconfigure your Airport Express after applying two of the three reset methods listed:

• Open AirPort Utility in Applications > Utilities.
• Select AirPort Utility > Check for Updates…
• Install the most recent firmware and version of AirPort Utility available for your Mac.

Before you attempt any of these reset methods, plug in your Airport Express (do not plug in the ethernet, USB or audio cabling) and let it go through its start up process, because the first two methods won’t work until the unit is fully up and running (slow blinking amber light).

Soft reset — Gives you five minutes to change the password or other discreet settings.
• Press and hold the reset button with a pen or pencil for one full second. The light (LED) will flash (blink rapidly) amber, indicating that the AirPort Express is in soft reset mode

Hard reset — Erases all user settings on the AirPort Base Station or Time Capsule but retains saved profiles. Gives you a quick n’ easy to to rename and repassword your device.
• To perform a hard reset, press and hold the reset button with a pen or pencil for 10 full seconds (flashing amber when it’s reset).
• Release the button. The AirPort Express will hard reset.

Factory default reset — The same as a hard reset but also removes any saved profiles. So, you wanna get rid of everything (i.e. you bought a used unit)? This is the way.
• Disconnect the AirPort Express from power
• Press and hold the reset button with a pen or pencil, then plug the AirPort Express back in while continuing to hold the button until you see the light flash rapidly. This should happen after a few seconds
• Release the button. The AirPort Express will factory default reset

Now, fire up Airport Utility, select your device and go to work. Airport Utility is super easy to use, though there is a full user manual (.pdf) should you need it.

Got a comment or tip of your own? Share it in the comments below…

via Apple Knowledge Base Article HT3728

4 Comments »

Tony Lindsey said:

Yeah, all of this is very, very nice, but worthless, information.

Why?

Because I’ve been a Mac consultant since 1985, and I have given up on resetting more Airport Expresses than I can recall. They simply don’t respond to the instructions you gave, up above. I have spent hours on the phone with Apple, I have brought them to the Genius bars, and I have spent a full hour attempting to do the Factory Reset technique, many times.

They simply don’t reset worth a dang. It’s deeply frustrating.

That’s why I no longer recommend the Airport Express, ever. They become inert lumps… Even the newest ones. The Airport Extreme can be reset to factory defaults through the Airport Utility, but not the Express. I suspect that Apple gave up up on the design years ago, and never fixed the basic design flaw.

# 2 September 2010 at 10:28 am

Magnus Petersson said:

Well, a factory reset did the trick for me this time. I’ve had an Express die on me before though, so I won’t say you are entirely wrong.

# 12 November 2010 at 4:54 pm

kk said:

I too have had little success with the prescribed method of resetting Airport Express units. However I have had 100% success in rescuing these ‘inert lumps’ by hard-wiring them to the ethernet port of the computer for reconfiguring.
It seems that by using a direct hardwired connection (only for the reset phase, they then can be used wirelessly once more) the Airport utility is forced to ‘see’ the unit and it can then be reconfigured.

This method has worked for me in numerous different situations where the Airport Express just is not seen by the computer when trying to connect wirelessly (eg. a used unit set up to be recognized by a different computer, a unit which became invisible after a failed firmware update, a unit which became unresponsive after trying these other methods of resetting etc)

It does take a minute or two for Airport Utility to ‘see’; the unit after plugging it in via direct ethernet cable but it can then be reconfigured as desired.

Good luck..

# 9 January 2011 at 10:02 am

yeeehah said:

I have been fiddling with this basic problem for a few days. I have a brand new airport express 802.11n and could use the airport assistant to (seemingly) set it up to my specifications so that I could run AirTunes through some speakers in another room. Whenever I finished and restarted the extreme it would never restart and I end up with the amber flashing light. Resetting following the instructions above was no big problem. (also, I could make AirTunes work if I plugged ethernet into the express. I couldn’t work out my problem.

Finally I found this link http://support.apple.com/kb TS2098

and it talks about MAC addresses but more importantly for me WEP passwords. The network I am on had 64 bit WEP setup (honestly it wasn’t me). I changed the router to accept WPA2 and all my problems disappeared instantly.
I hope this is useful to someone.

# 15 May 2012 at 6:15 am