Coupled dark matter-dark energy systems can suffer from non-adiabatic instabilities at early times and large scales. In these proceedings, we consider two parameterizations of the dark sector interaction. In the first one the energy-momentum transfer 4-vector is parallel to the dark matter 4-velocity and in the second one to the dark energy 4-velocity. In these cases, coupled models which suffer from non-adiabatic instabilities can be identified as a function of a generic coupling Q and of the dark energy equation of state. In our analysis, we do not refer to any particular cosmic field. We confront then a viable class of models in which the interaction is directly proportional to the dark energy density and to the Hubble rate parameter to recent cosmological data. In that framework, we show that correlations between the dark coupling and several cosmological parameters allow for a larger neutrino mass than in uncoupled models.