I am using an 2008 vintage Apple Airport Extreme 802.11n as part of my home network. This device is running Apple's 7.4.2 firmware, is providing draft 802.11n WiFi access, and is acting as a file server for a HFS+ formatted disk. There are up to three computers that will, as needed, auto-mount this disk via AFP (AppleTalk) to save or use files.
What I am finding is that the embedded AFP server on this router is finicky and unstable. I am also finding that there are no meaningful logs that I can use to troubleshoot the problem. During heavy(ish) interraction (streaming a movie, or rsyncing a ~30,000 file directory) the afp server simply stops. The AAE continues to act as a WiFi access point, but all afp traffic is stalled. Attempts to see the shared disk are met with "failed to connect."
On a client machine one can see:
2/7/10 12:06:24 AM KernelEventAgent[39] tid 00000000 type 'afpfs', mounted on '/Volumes/s/Media', from 'afp_0SKbl41oxfHT0ADaWq008PHG-1.2d00000f', not responding 2/7/10 12:06:25 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect started /Volumes/s/Media prevTrigger 0 currTrigger 1 2/7/10 12:06:25 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: doing reconnect on /Volumes/s/Media 2/7/10 12:06:25 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: posting to KEA EINPROGRESS for /Volumes/s/Media 2/7/10 12:06:25 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: Max reconnect time: 600 secs, Connect timeout: 0 secs for /Volumes/s/Media 2/7/10 12:06:25 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: connect to the server /Volumes/s/Media 2/7/10 12:06:25 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: connect on /Volumes/s/Media failed 61. 2/7/10 12:06:26 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: connect to the server /Volumes/s/Media 2/7/10 12:06:26 AM kernel AFP_VFS afpfs_DoReconnect: connect on /Volumes/s/Media failed 61.
This will contiue until the AAE is rebooted.
Dear AAE - Why you gotta be breaking my heart?
Update: The AAE filled me with too much hate. It is now relegated back to simply being a 802.11n(draft) access point. The disks have been moved off to a Mac Mini that is dedicated to being a Home Theater PC, but only has to do that a few hours a day. The rest of the time (and even when being an HTPC) it's perfectly capable of being a file server on a low-demand network.