MacOS – L2TP/VPN data corruption issue on macOS 10.12

file-transfermacosNetworkvpn

I am experiencing a strange data corruption issue while working on a L2TP VPN, after upgrading from macOS 10.11 to 10.12. Random corrupted data occurs in the middle of somewhat "larger" downloaded files, e. g. JavaScript resources or any other source files with a file size around 1 ~ 2 MB. It seems the corruption comes up occasionally at file sizes < 1 MB, but quite reliable at file sizes above. The position and content appears to be random. I am attaching a screenshot containing an example of the file corruption which occured in a 1.4 MB JavaScript file.

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I never had any problems concerning this on macOS 10.10 or 10.11 and the latest issue results in very annoying consequences. E. g. I am not able to access JS-heavy web apps anymore. Furthermore it is risky to work in live systems of enterprise software when downloading, patching and uploading files. People around me using the same VPN on macOS 10.12 have the very same problem, whereas people still working on macOS 10.11 have no trouble at all.

Does anyone else experience this problem? How can I troubleshoot this?

Also relating to an older post in Apple Communities describing a similar (or the same?) issue in older macOS versions:
https://discussions.apple.com/message/30908122?start=0&tstart=0#30908122

Edit 2016-11-08

What's interesting: scp (SSH) downloads are interrupted by an error.

xyz-macbook:Downloads xyz$ scp xyz@192.168.227.123:/srv/www/xyz/ext-5.0.1/build/ext-all.js .
xyz@192.168.227.123's password:
ext-all.js    0%    0     0.0KB/s   --:-- ETACorrupted MAC on input.
ssh_dispatch_run_fatal: Connection to 192.168.227.123 port 22: message authentication code incorrect
lost connection

Whereas curl (HTTP) downloads finish, but contain the above-mentioned corrupted characters.

xyz-macbook:Downloads xyz$ curl "http://192.168.227.123/xyz/ext-5.0.1/build/ext-all.js" -o "ext-all.js"
  % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                 Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
100 1952k  100 1952k    0     0  1728k      0  0:00:01  0:00:01 --:--:-- 1729k

Edit 2016-11-11

The corrupted data is different with every download of one and the same file:

xyz-macbook:Downloads xyz$ md5 dummy_novpn.txt 
MD5 (dummy_novpn.txt) = ca323efb28ed75534f8f6b7b0237d9da
xyz-macbook:Downloads xyz$ md5 dummy_vpn.txt 
MD5 (dummy_vpn.txt) = 060bbe9846e7845993041a1481c34b93
xyz-macbook:Downloads xyz$ md5 dummy_vpn2.txt 
MD5 (dummy_vpn2.txt) = dacfc661f9a85606afbdfefa72d50516
xyz-macbook:Downloads xyz$ md5 dummy_vpn3.txt 
MD5 (dummy_vpn3.txt) = 8c3f06f9ee440947a9e5864748bd7010

Best Answer

Do you happen to have a https://eshop.macsales.com/item/OWC/TCDOCK11PSG/ ? I had the same issue, and it turns out if I moved the ethernet from the port on the OWC replicator, to a USB-C Ethernet, the problem went away.