diff --git a/aTrain_core/load_resources.py b/aTrain_core/load_resources.py
index 0c4646de..5895fa0b 100644
--- a/aTrain_core/load_resources.py
+++ b/aTrain_core/load_resources.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import json
 import os
 import shutil
+import ssl
 from functools import partial
 from importlib.resources import files
 from multiprocessing.managers import DictProxy
@@ -12,6 +13,14 @@
 from aTrain_core.globals import MODELS_DIR, REQUIRED_MODELS, REQUIRED_MODELS_DIR
 from aTrain_core.integrity import ModelIntegrityError, find_missing_files, verify_model
 
+OFFLINE_INSTALL_DOCS = (
+    "https://github.com/aTrainTranscription/aTrain/blob/develop/docs/offline-model-install.md"
+)
+
+
+class ModelDownloadError(Exception):
+    """A model could not be downloaded, with a hint on what to do about it."""
+
 
 class custom_tqdm(tqdm):
     def __init__(self, progress: DictProxy, total: float, *args, **kwargs):
@@ -51,11 +60,42 @@ def download_model(model_path: Path, model_info: dict, progress: DictProxy | Non
             local_dir=model_path,
             max_workers=1,
         )
+    except Exception as error:
+        if _is_certificate_error(error):
+            raise ModelDownloadError(
+                f"Could not download model '{model_path.name}': the server certificate "
+                "could not be verified. A proxy in your network most likely inspects "
+                "HTTPS traffic with its own certificate. Ask your IT department, or "
+                f"install the model manually: {OFFLINE_INSTALL_DOCS}"
+            ) from error
+        raise
     finally:
         file_download.http_get = original_http_get
         file_download.xet_get = original_xet_get
 
 
+def _is_certificate_error(error: BaseException) -> bool:
+    """True if a certificate check failed anywhere in the exception chain.
+
+    The HTTP clients wrap it several layers deep (requests and urllib3 today,
+    httpx with huggingface_hub 1.x), so the chain is walked instead of
+    matching one client's exception type. urllib3 keeps the original error in
+    `args` and `reason` rather than chaining it, so those are followed too.
+    """
+    seen = set()
+    pending: list[BaseException] = [error]
+    while pending:
+        current = pending.pop()
+        if id(current) in seen:
+            continue
+        seen.add(id(current))
+        if isinstance(current, ssl.SSLCertVerificationError):
+            return True
+        linked = [current.__cause__, current.__context__, getattr(current, "reason", None)]
+        pending += [e for e in [*linked, *current.args] if isinstance(e, BaseException)]
+    return False
+
+
 def get_model(model: str, progress: DictProxy | None = None) -> Path:
     """Loads a specific model, downloading and verifying it if necessary."""
     models_config = load_model_config_file()
diff --git a/tests/unit/test_load_resources.py b/tests/unit/test_load_resources.py
index f18bc34a..707b108f 100644
--- a/tests/unit/test_load_resources.py
+++ b/tests/unit/test_load_resources.py
@@ -75,3 +75,43 @@ def test_hub_download_functions_accept_the_progress_bar(name):
     # download_model passes `_tqdm_bar` to both; a Hub upgrade that drops it
     # would only fail at download time.
     assert "_tqdm_bar" in inspect.signature(getattr(file_download, name)).parameters
+
+
+def _certificate_error():
+    """The shape of the chain requests raises when a proxy re-signs TLS.
+
+    requests.SSLError has MaxRetryError as its context, whose `reason` is a
+    urllib3 SSLError that holds the ssl error in `args` instead of chaining
+    it. Built from stdlib exceptions, since the unit job installs neither
+    requests nor urllib3.
+    """
+    import ssl
+
+    urllib3_error = OSError(ssl.SSLCertVerificationError(1, "unable to get local issuer"))
+    max_retry = OSError("Max retries exceeded")
+    max_retry.reason = urllib3_error
+    requests_error = OSError(max_retry)
+    requests_error.__context__ = max_retry
+    return requests_error
+
+
+def test_certificate_error_points_to_manual_install(tmp_path, monkeypatch):
+    original = file_download.http_get
+
+    def fail(**kw):
+        raise _certificate_error()
+
+    monkeypatch.setattr(load_resources, "snapshot_download", fail)
+
+    with pytest.raises(load_resources.ModelDownloadError) as caught:
+        load_resources.download_model(
+            tmp_path / "large-v3-turbo", MODEL_INFO, progress={"current": 0, "total": 0}
+        )
+
+    assert "'large-v3-turbo'" in str(caught.value)
+    assert load_resources.OFFLINE_INSTALL_DOCS in str(caught.value)
+    assert file_download.http_get is original
+
+
+def test_other_errors_are_not_reported_as_certificate_errors():
+    assert not load_resources._is_certificate_error(OSError("connection lost"))