How to update an old Apple Airport base station.

Apple snow Airport base station

If you have one of these Snow Apple Airport Base stations you may have noticed that newer versions of the Apple Airport Utility do not support the older base stations. And older versions of the Base Station Utility won’t launch on newer macs. Here’s how to fix this problem and still use your old base station with a newer Macintosh computer.

The problem.

More recent versions of the Apple Airport utility don’t support older AirPort base stations. An error message appears that says ‘This version of AirPort Utility doesn’t support this base station.’

Not supported — New versions of Apple Airport Utility do not work with older base stations.

2. You might think ‘That’s fine, I’ll just use the old Apple Airport Utility’. But Apple have broken the older AirPort Utility 5.6.1. The Utility shows up as having a white line over it and won’t launch. If you try to launch it on any OS X newer than ‘Mavericks’ you just get an error saying ‘You can’t use this version of the application Airport utility 5.6.1 with this version of Mac OS.’

Older versions of Apple AirPort Utility are ‘broken’.

The Fix

Now it turns out that the old version of AirPort Utility works perfectly. It’s just been ‘disabled’ by Apple so it won’t launch.

Thanks to these guys, there’s an Applet that will launch the older version of AirPort Utility in newer versions of OS X. It simply tricks the computer into thinking you have an older version of OS X when it launches the AirPort Utility.

This launcher tricks the AirPort Utility into thinking you have an older version of OS X and allows it run.

You can download the launcher from here.

The result is as follows – you can now change the settings on your older Apple AirPort Extreme using Airport utility 5.6.1.

This still works as of OS X High Sierra. (OS X 10.13.5)

Posted

September 1, 2018

airport, router

New Posts

New ThemeAugust 16, 2023
Can I zoom the MacBook Pro camera in a Zoom meeting?July 30, 2023
How to sync your iPad without using your iCloud dataJuly 28, 2023

Latest Comments

Wayne on GTD with Apple remindersAugust 16, 2023
Yes, I just used relative rage is in the last year.
Stephen on GTD with Apple remindersAugust 16, 2023
One Last question, how did you filter your overdue smart list. I have been using relative range past year but…
Wayne on GTD with Apple remindersAugust 14, 2023
I’ve got to admit the iOS app is not as easy to use as the desktop one!

Article Categories

Comments

18 responses to “How to update an old Apple Airport base station.”

mark0
December 10, 2018
hi, unfortunately it does not work in mojave, do you know how I can fix it?
thank you.
Reply
1. william eggemeyer
  August 8, 2019
  It fails in Mojave with the following error:
  sh: line 2: cd: /private/var/folders/n4/51z76b7n4jl9rdfdbmymhq4m0000gn/T/AppTranslocation/7D641538-86BA-490A-8D26-D0B190E20FDA/dAirPort Utility 5.6.1.app/Contents/MacOS: No such file or directory
  sh: line 3: ./AirPort Utility: No such file or directory
  Reply
dana2048
September 14, 2019
note where the error message says: …0FDA/dAirPort Utility 5.6.1.app/Contents…
particularly the part “…a/dAirPort Utility…” see that d at the beginning of the Airport app name
there is a “/” missing in the script. So copy the script and the app to your computer, open the script in Script Editor and fix it. Then run that modified script from Script Editor.
Specifically, change line 10 from:
…currentDir & “AirPort\\ Utility\\ 5.6.1.app/Contents…
to:
currentDir & “/AirPort\\ Utility\\ 5.6.1.app/Contents
— just add that “/” in front of AirPort. This works for me on High Sierra 10.13.6 and I can configure my 2005 Airport Express by plugging to the computer using Ethernet cable.
Reply
1. brianzo
  March 27, 2020
  Thanks dana2048. That change helped, but then in Catalina 10.15.4, I encountered a problem where the Airport Utility wouldn’t launch, because it was from an unknown developer. The usual trick of Control-clicking the app and then selecting “Open” wouldn’t work, because it would throw up the error that Airport Utility 5.6.1 would not run on this system.
  To get around this, I removed the com.apple.quarantine extended attribute from the file with this command (and then dragging in the Airport Utility 5.6.1 app to insert the path):
  xattr -d com.apple.quarantine
  All working now, in Catalina. Thanks to all!
  Reply
  1. Wayne
    March 27, 2020
    Nice tip!
  2. Ed
    April 1, 2020
    I dont understand your work around?
  3. timr
    April 3, 2020
    Ed – I had the same question, guessed it was either for addition to the AppleScript, or in Terminal. It was the latter.
    1. Open terminal
    2. Copy the line above (xattr -d com.apple.quarantine) and paste into terminal, put a space after it.
    3. Drag the Airport Utility 5.6.1 app in to the Terminal window – this inserts the app location and name in at the end of the line.
    4. Hit return.
    5. Terminal will run the command, you won’t see any response.
    6. Run the script again – this time it should fire up the Utility (did for me, first time)
Ty Morton
January 14, 2020
I’m trying to get my Airport Extreme to connect to my non-Apple wifi network so that I can continue to use the hard drives and printer connected to it.
Firmware updates to my AirPort Extreme now prevent the 5.6.1 version of the app from accessing the hardware’s configuration. It either gives me an error or simply crashes.
It’s maddening because the only reason I need it is because the current version of the AirPort utility doesn’t have “Join an existing network” as an option. It only allows you to either create or extend a network. If Apple would just restore that option, I wouldn’t need the 5.6.1 version.
Reply
Dennis
April 8, 2020
Hey guys. So I got it to run 5.6.1 in Mojave but it won’t recognize the airport… any way you guys could help? Thanks!
Reply
Nick
March 22, 2021
I’m trying to get this to work in high sierra and it cannot find it. High sierra can and will not set it up. How do I fix this? In old macs you had to be on that wifi network to set it up.
Reply
Daniele
May 20, 2021
Worked for me on Big Sur with M1 Mac Mini and a Airport Express A1088 (M9470LL/A) with the xattr command line trick.
Reply
yandex
July 25, 2021
bigsur don’t want to run the utility:
sh: line 2: cd: /private/var/folders/3m/ps02x7n12g9fk181ygkw6d640000gn/T/AppTranslocation/21EEC460-9878-4CA7-B71C-D8CE9B5AEA67/dAirPort Utility 5.6.1.app/Contents/MacOS: No such file or directory
sh: line 3: ./AirPort Utility: No such file or directory (127)
Reply
1. Jake
  October 24, 2021
  Having the same issue, I do not have the skills to figure it out lol
  Reply
Kenn
November 2, 2021
Can anyone help please I have a MacBook pro High Sierra 10.13.6 today my airport express stopped working so can’t connect to my iTunes and various speakers round the home. when i try it states “this version of Airport Utility doesn’t support this base station”
any ideas would be gratefully received. thanks
Kenn
Reply
Rob
December 8, 2021
After having problems as well, I simply put both the files in the Utilities folder directly (not under a subfolder that the download came with). It then all worked without modifying the scripts. Be sure ‘not’ to select the update option when prompted on startup.
Reply
Tony Brown
January 21, 2022
Upgraded to Monterey. AIRPORT UTILITY no longer works. Any ideas?
Reply
Excabonfire
April 17, 2022
MacOS Monterey following output:
sh: line 2: cd: /Applications//AirPort Utility 5.6.1.app/Contents/MacOS: No such file or directory
sh: line 3: ./AirPort Utility: No such file or directory (127)
also after editing a few thing it doesn’t work. Any ideas to fix this problem?
Reply
Gray
January 24, 2023
I’m having a problem where every time I try to select the basestation from the wireless options (from the top menu bar), the NEWER AirPort Utility (6.x) pops up. Anyone know how I might be able to disable that so I can use this older version?
Reply