Upgraded from AC66U to AC86U, now Macs on network getting duplicate hostname errors?

[theboyk]

Hi there,

I recently swapped out our old AC66U with a newer AC86U. These devices are in AP mode as they just provide WiFi access in the studio. Ever since then, Macs on the network continually report "there is already a computer on the network with the same hostname" and then the computer's hostname is renamed from computername.local to computername-1.local (computername-2.local, etc.).

I've rebooted all devices (servers, switches, all client devices, Apple Tvs, etc.—everything/anything connected to the network) and it continues to happen. If I swap the old AC66U back in (taking the AC86U offline), everything is fine again. I've spent a month of so working on this issue and narrowed it down to the AC86U. As soon as it's on the network, this starts happening. Take it off the network, back to normal.

I've updated the AC86U to the latest firmware, tried the latest version of Merlin, reset to factory and set up again, etc. But, nothing works.

Before I offline the AC86U permanently, wondering if anyone has any suggestions I might have missed in all my troubleshooting?

Thanks,
Kristin.

 

[OzarkEdge]

Hi there,

I recently swapped out our old AC66U with a newer AC86U. These devices are in AP mode as they just provide WiFi access in the studio. Ever since then, Macs on the network continually report "there is already a computer on the network with the same hostname" and then the computer's hostname is renamed from computername.local to computername-1.local (computername-2.local, etc.).

I've rebooted all devices (servers, switches, all client devices, Apple Tvs, etc.—everything/anything connected to the network) and it continues to happen. If I swap the old AC66U back in (taking the AC86U offline), everything is fine again. I've spent a month of so working on this issue and narrowed it down to the AC86U. As soon as it's on the network, this starts happening. Take it off the network, back to normal.

I've updated the AC86U to the latest firmware, tried the latest version of Merlin, reset to factory and set up again, etc. But, nothing works.

Before I offline the AC86U permanently, wondering if anyone has any suggestions I might have missed in all my troubleshooting?

Thanks,
Kristin.

Random thought...

Did you forget and recreate WiFi client connections?

OE

 

[vdemarco]

Hi there,

I recently swapped out our old AC66U with a newer AC86U. These devices are in AP mode as they just provide WiFi access in the studio. Ever since then, Macs on the network continually report "there is already a computer on the network with the same hostname" and then the computer's hostname is renamed from computername.local to computername-1.local (computername-2.local, etc.).

I've rebooted all devices (servers, switches, all client devices, Apple Tvs, etc.—everything/anything connected to the network) and it continues to happen. If I swap the old AC66U back in (taking the AC86U offline), everything is fine again. I've spent a month of so working on this issue and narrowed it down to the AC86U. As soon as it's on the network, this starts happening. Take it off the network, back to normal.

I've updated the AC86U to the latest firmware, tried the latest version of Merlin, reset to factory and set up again, etc. But, nothing works.

Before I offline the AC86U permanently, wondering if anyone has any suggestions I might have missed in all my troubleshooting?

Thanks,
Kristin.

i have mostly apple stuff, an ax88 and the latest released merlin and everything is working great. i have macbooks, apple tvs and iphones, ipads

 

[CaptainSTX]

Random thought...

Did you forget and recreate WiFi client connections?

OE

Have you double checked the AC86 to be sure that the DHCP server is off? It should automatically be off in AP mode but clearly you have a problem.

Also while you are supposed to be able to use the WAN port as a LAN port in the AP mode have you tried connecting the uplink from the primary router to a LAN port on the AC86?

While it might be your preference to have all APs with the same SSIDs what happens if you give the AC86 a different SSID at least until such time as the problems disappear?

 

[vdemarco]

"there is already a computer on the network with the same hostname" that used to be a bug in rendevous on the mac, that has long been fixed where it would assign same name to the computer. It would see MyMac on the network put up the message and rename your computer MyMac-1

Bet there is some issue with the multicast packets that rendevous uses (dnsresponder)