Anyone ever resurrected a 'bricked' Airport Express?

I have one in the kitchen attached to a pair of speakers which I'd not used for a few weeks. This weekend I tried to use it again and noticed that I couldn't use Airtunes, looking through the logs a message 'AirTunes time sync receive error:' kept appearing, after a bit of googling, most people seemed to regain function after a firmware update (their units were usually a revision behind the latest version). So I thought I'd try and downgrade then upgrade, but in the process of downgrading to the previous version I appear to have semi-bricked it.

The unit goes through all the usual boot procedure, it appears in the Airport utility, but any attempt to configure it leaves you staring at a 'getting config' message indefinitely. Interestingly enough you can still ping its management address over wifi, but the built in ethernet port is dead, no link. It briefly shows link for about 10 secs during boot but then nothing.

Anybody got any ideas?

Probably worth trying a full factory reset.

Had to do this on one of my older units, and it brought it back to life. If this doesn't work, any valid Applecare agreement on a Mac in the household will cover Airports too.

I tried the factory reset, except it never seems to get past the rapid flashing LED stage. I left it flashing for over 30 mins before giving up and power cycling again.

Amy (I've been told she doesn't like me referring to her as SWMBO) and I are awaiting a pair of new MacBook Pros that I ordered online last week, could I use their default 12 month applecare to get one of the local stores to look at it?

I believe it only applies to the supplemental Applecare, and not the initial one year warranty. The base warranty pdf never mentions accessories, while the Applecare pdf does. The key part seems to be this:

Too funny!

We should have told you, I guess. You're not supposed to call her that to her face.

How peculiar, before tossing it in the bin I thought I'd have one last go. Another 'factory reset' didn't work. However since it still shows up in the utility app I thought I'd have one last look. Right clicking on the 'identify' still made the front LED flash so I thought I'd try sending a factory reset command over the air, which has done the trick. Once updated back to the current firmware version and the various settings re-entered, it appears to be 100% functional, including AirTunes. Bizarre.

Excellent!

Now that the key for those devices is out in the open, I suppose somebody might eventually add the protocol/code to the empeg..

Maybe she is a lurker, like my wife !!! Yea that's right I know you watch me

Can a man have no privacy to geek out when he wants to

Cheers

Cris

Yes, it's funny the day I have problems with AirTunes, somebody announces that they've successfully reverse engineered it.

Once we move house I'd like to look at doing whole house audio, I'd rather do it with one box hosting multiple RAOP services or multiple softsqueeze instances feeding speakers in multiple rooms than sticking an airport express or squeezebox in every room.

She admitted to doing this years ago, obviously the ACCA forums aren't interesting enough.

Oh well, it appears it's not 100% success, while I can now drive the audio output of the express from my macs, it appears the iphones and ipod touch still don't work. Back to the drawing board i suppose.