AirPort Extremes with HE tunnel freeze randomly

[sejong]

Our company main and branch offices are connected by a pair of AirPort Extremes and an HE tunnel.  Most of the time communication works, but at seemingly random intervals, one or the other AirPort Extreme freezes.  The tunnel drops, all Internet access at the frozen end stops, and the frozen AirPort Extreme cannot be connected to.  We have to power cycle it, which restores everything to normal.

Any suggestions for eliminating this problem?
Thanks.

[cholzhauer]

If it were me, I'd ditch the AirPort extremes and use a couple of Linux/BSD VM's to do the same thing

[sejong]

Thanks for the quick reply and suggestion.  Could you elaborate on why?  For us, this would mean repurposing a couple of Mac minis as Linux or BSD routers so it would take a little effort.

[cholzhauer]

IMHO, Airport Extremes are not "enterprise grade" equipment (and I'd lump mac mini's into that too)  If your business depends on this equipment to function, I'd look for something better

I have no idea what your infrastructure is, but adding a small VM to an existing host would be more stable and wouldn't require constant reboots to fix freezing; I'm hosting our tunnel on a BSD VM that's been online for hundreds of days without issue.  Now, if you're just using the AirPort Extremes for testing and IT play toys, I don't have a problem with that (if you can deal with the annoying reboots)

[sejong]

Thanks for the detail and overview.  Your points are well taken.

[cholzhauer]

Sure thing, hope you're able to fix the freezing.  Have you tried a firmware upgrade?

[sejong]

Firmware is at the most current version (7.7.1).  We have had the same experience with different firmware versions and different AirPort Extreme versions.  I think the issue is not firmware-related.

[sejong]

Update.  This is related to the wireless function of the AirPort Extreme.  With Wireless mode set to Off, the problem did not occur.  I realize that turning wireless off is not a solution, but it has narrowed down the cause.