diff --git a/src/db-base.ts b/src/db-base.ts
index 7d28037b1..6cfa13c0b 100644
--- a/src/db-base.ts
+++ b/src/db-base.ts
@@ -423,10 +423,32 @@ export function defaultDBPath(prefix: string = "context-mode"): string {
 // ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 
 /**
- * Retry a DB operation with exponential backoff on SQLITE_BUSY errors.
- * Catches errors containing "SQLITE_BUSY" or "database is locked" and
- * retries up to 3 times with delays: 100ms, 500ms, 2000ms.
- * If all retries fail, throws a descriptive error.
+ * Error substrings that indicate a *transient* SQLite failure — one worth
+ * retrying rather than surfacing to the caller.
+ *
+ * SQLITE_IOERR is included deliberately. On macOS it is most often transient
+ * (filesystem pressure, Spotlight/iCloud touching the DB mid-write, a WAL
+ * hiccup) rather than a damaged file. Before this list existed, IOERR fell
+ * into a gap: not matched here so it got zero retries, and not matched by
+ * isSQLiteCorruptionError() either, so no recovery ran. A single blip
+ * hard-failed the caller — e.g. ctx_fetch_and_index aborting a page index.
+ *
+ * IOERR must NOT be added to isSQLiteCorruptionError(): that path renames or
+ * deletes the DB file, which would destroy a healthy knowledge base over a
+ * momentary I/O stall. Retry here; recover there.
+ */
+const TRANSIENT_ERROR_PATTERNS = [
+  "SQLITE_BUSY",
+  "database is locked",
+  "SQLITE_IOERR",
+  "disk I/O error",
+];
+
+/**
+ * Retry a DB operation with exponential backoff on transient SQLite errors.
+ * Catches SQLITE_BUSY / "database is locked" and SQLITE_IOERR / "disk I/O
+ * error" and retries up to 3 times with delays: 100ms, 500ms, 2000ms.
+ * If all retries fail, throws a descriptive error naming the actual cause.
  * Pass custom delays for testing (e.g., [0, 0, 0] to skip waits).
  */
 export function withRetry<T>(fn: () => T, delays: number[] = [100, 500, 2000]): T {
@@ -436,7 +458,7 @@ export function withRetry<T>(fn: () => T, delays: number[] = [100, 500, 2000]):
       return fn();
     } catch (err: unknown) {
       const msg = err instanceof Error ? err.message : String(err);
-      if (!msg.includes("SQLITE_BUSY") && !msg.includes("database is locked")) {
+      if (!TRANSIENT_ERROR_PATTERNS.some((p) => msg.includes(p))) {
         throw err;
       }
       lastError = err instanceof Error ? err : new Error(msg);
@@ -447,8 +469,15 @@ export function withRetry<T>(fn: () => T, delays: number[] = [100, 500, 2000]):
       }
     }
   }
+  // Name the class we actually exhausted on — reporting "database is locked"
+  // for an I/O failure sends the caller after the wrong root cause.
+  const failure = lastError?.message ?? "";
+  const cause =
+    failure.includes("SQLITE_IOERR") || failure.includes("disk I/O error")
+      ? "SQLITE_IOERR: disk I/O error"
+      : "SQLITE_BUSY: database is locked";
   throw new Error(
-    `SQLITE_BUSY: database is locked after ${delays.length} retries. ` +
+    `${cause} after ${delays.length} retries. ` +
     `Original error: ${lastError?.message}`
   );
 }
diff --git a/tests/store.test.ts b/tests/store.test.ts
index 8516ded59..63ca40ade 100644
--- a/tests/store.test.ts
+++ b/tests/store.test.ts
@@ -1575,6 +1575,56 @@ describe("SQLITE_BUSY retry logic", () => {
     }).toThrow("UNIQUE constraint failed");
     expect(attempts).toBe(1);
   });
+
+  // A transient SQLITE_IOERR previously got zero retries: it matched neither
+  // the busy-retry check nor isSQLiteCorruptionError(), so one filesystem
+  // blip hard-failed the write (e.g. ctx_fetch_and_index mid-index).
+  test("withRetry retries on SQLITE_IOERR and succeeds", () => {
+    let attempts = 0;
+    const result = withRetry(() => {
+      attempts++;
+      if (attempts < 3) {
+        throw new Error("SQLITE_IOERR: disk I/O error");
+      }
+      return "recovered";
+    }, [0, 0, 0]);
+    expect(result).toBe("recovered");
+    expect(attempts).toBe(3);
+  });
+
+  test("withRetry retries on bare 'disk I/O error' without the SQLITE_IOERR code", () => {
+    let attempts = 0;
+    const result = withRetry(() => {
+      attempts++;
+      if (attempts < 2) {
+        throw new Error("disk I/O error");
+      }
+      return "ok";
+    }, [0, 0, 0]);
+    expect(result).toBe("ok");
+    expect(attempts).toBe(2);
+  });
+
+  test("withRetry reports SQLITE_IOERR — not BUSY — when I/O retries are exhausted", () => {
+    expect(() => {
+      withRetry(() => {
+        throw new Error("SQLITE_IOERR: disk I/O error");
+      }, [0, 0, 0]);
+    }).toThrow(/SQLITE_IOERR.*3 retries/);
+  });
+
+  // Guard the boundary: SQLITE_CORRUPT says "disk image malformed", which must
+  // not be mistaken for the retryable "disk I/O error".
+  test("withRetry still rethrows SQLITE_CORRUPT immediately", () => {
+    let attempts = 0;
+    expect(() => {
+      withRetry(() => {
+        attempts++;
+        throw new Error("SQLITE_CORRUPT: database disk image is malformed");
+      }, [0, 0, 0]);
+    }).toThrow(/SQLITE_CORRUPT/);
+    expect(attempts).toBe(1);
+  });
 });
 
 // ── withRetry coverage for all write/read paths ──