this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2025
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Huh, storage or RAM problems would be evident in your file tests (and elsewhere). Can you visit websites normally? Stream YouTube etc.? It would be very strange for a broken network device to corrupt files.
Also, since you didn't mention where the downloads are coming from... No chance of corruption at the source?
The input/output error makes me think disk issue (since it should copy corrupt files just fine, it's just data) but that should also be triggered by copying from a separate device. A more thorough disk check may be in order, like a badblock run or something.
Browsing and streaming no issues. Or any other daily computer task, all fine. No weird behavior, lags or freezes, nothing.
I've checked the source files, they're ok. I've even downloaded them from another computer, and transferred them on the Thinkpad with a USB stick, and they can be opened normally. Downloads are coming from various websites, a VPS, a local server.
I'll do that now.
Thanks for the help!!!
No sweat, I hope that's enlightening. Another thing that may be interesting is checking dmesg after you trigger the input/output error (or just generally since you are seeing silent corruption). Bad errors there are usually signs of hardware issues, and may also give you something more specific to search with.
Yeah I thought of checking dmesg too late, I was already running the - destructive - badblocks command...
It is finishing I think, and found zero errors.
My plan now is to install a different distribution to see if it makes a difference. I the error reappears I'll remember to check the logs.
Is there any chance this could be caused by malware on their router? I'm puking this right outta, well, you know where; just curious if the evidence would even fit my theory...
this can be tested by using some other machine, it is unlikely a malware infected router would serve differently for different client devices.
I mean, anything is possible, but that seems farfetched to me. The router is typically a hard target for malware unless you have physical or at least LAN access. They are generally pretty locked down and don't execute anything from remote access, they examine packet headers and send them on their way. If it was compromised I'd expect something more nefarious than ruining file transfers too.
The biggest strike against this being a network hardware/driver issue is that normal browsing works. If packets were being screwed up in transit, connections would drop, text and images would be corrupt as well (which the browser would probably choke on). It seems to have an issue only when the disk is involved, when data is being saved.