diff --git a/wcs_olap/tb.py b/wcs_olap/tb.py
index 4a8d18f..1f7d293 100644
--- a/wcs_olap/tb.py
+++ b/wcs_olap/tb.py
@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ import linecache
 def print_tb():
     exc_type, exc_value, tb = sys.exc_info()
     if exc_value:
-        exc_value = unicode(str(exc_value), errors='ignore').encode('utf-8')
+        exc_value = unicode(str(exc_value), errors='ignore')
     error_file = StringIO()
 
     limit = None