diff --git a/wcs/qommon/publisher.py b/wcs/qommon/publisher.py
index 7bca109ff..dfa437f6d 100644
--- a/wcs/qommon/publisher.py
+++ b/wcs/qommon/publisher.py
@@ -183,7 +183,8 @@ class QommonPublisher(Publisher, object):
 
     def _generate_plaintext_error(self, request, original_response,
                                   exc_type, exc_value, tb, limit = None):
-        if exc_value:
+        if exc_value and six.PY2:
+            # do not fail on exception strings using non-ascii chars
             exc_value = force_text(str(exc_value), errors='ignore').encode('ascii')
         if not self.USE_LONG_TRACES:
             if not request: