diff --git a/lfs.c b/lfs.c
index 5375da1f..40dc1de4 100644
--- a/lfs.c
+++ b/lfs.c
@@ -1075,7 +1075,9 @@ static lfs_ssize_t lfsr_bd_readtag_(lfs_t *lfs,
         return d_;
     }
     // weights should be limited to 31-bits
-    LFS_ASSERT(weight <= 0x7fffffff);
+    if (weight > 0x7fffffff) {
+        return LFS_ERR_CORRUPT;
+    }
     d += d_;
 
     lfs_size_t size;
@@ -1084,7 +1086,9 @@ static lfs_ssize_t lfsr_bd_readtag_(lfs_t *lfs,
         return d_;
     }
     // sizes should be limited to 28-bits
-    LFS_ASSERT(size <= 0x0fffffff);
+    if (size > 0x0fffffff) {
+        return LFS_ERR_CORRUPT;
+    }
     d += d_;
 
     // optional checksum
@@ -1405,7 +1409,9 @@ static int lfsr_data_readleb128(lfs_t *lfs, lfsr_data_t *data,
         return d;
     }
     // all leb128s in our system reserve the sign bit
-    LFS_ASSERT(*word_ <= 0x7fffffff);
+    if (*word_ > 0x7fffffff) {
+        return LFS_ERR_CORRUPT;
+    }
 
     *data = lfsr_data_slice(*data, d, -1);
     return 0;
@@ -1422,9 +1428,11 @@ static inline int lfsr_data_readlleb128(lfs_t *lfs, lfsr_data_t *data,
     if (err) {
         return err;
     }
-
     // little-leb128s should be limited to 28-bits
-    LFS_ASSERT(*word_ <= 0x0fffffff);
+    if (*word_ > 0x0fffffff) {
+        return LFS_ERR_CORRUPT;
+    }
+
     return 0;
 }
 
diff --git a/tests/test_rbyd.toml b/tests/test_rbyd.toml
index cd308d98..3af13ddc 100644
--- a/tests/test_rbyd.toml
+++ b/tests/test_rbyd.toml
@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 after = 'test_bd'
 
 # test with a number of different erase values
-defines.ERASE_VALUE = [0xff, 0x00, 0x1b]
+defines.ERASE_VALUE = [0xff, 0x00, -1]
 
 # set block_size to the full size of disk so we can test arbitrarily
 # large rbyd trees, we don't really care about block sizes at this