diff --git a/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py b/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py
index c149e97c5..05b1f6591 100644
--- a/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py
+++ b/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py
@@ -1093,9 +1093,21 @@ class PluginRegister(object):
             if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
                 full_filename = full_filename.encode(glocale.getfilesystemencoding())
             local_gettext = glocale.get_addon_translator(full_filename).gettext
+            try:
+                stream = open(full_filename).read()
+            except UnicodeError as err:
+                if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
+                    print(_("ERROR: Failed to read file %s, %s") % (full_filename, str(err)))
+                    continue
+                else:
+                    try:
+                        stream = open(full_filename, encoding = 'utf-8').read()
+                    except ValueError as err:
+                        print(_("ERROR: Failed to read file %s, %s") % (full_filename, str(err)))
+                        continue
             try:
                 #execfile(full_filename,
-                exec(compile(open(full_filename).read(), full_filename, 'exec'),
+                exec(compile(stream, full_filename, 'exec'),
                          make_environment(_=local_gettext),
                          {})
             except ValueError as msg:
diff --git a/gramps/gen/utils/configmanager.py b/gramps/gen/utils/configmanager.py
index 6fa579b51..c766852bf 100644
--- a/gramps/gen/utils/configmanager.py
+++ b/gramps/gen/utils/configmanager.py
@@ -335,7 +335,10 @@ class ConfigManager(object):
             except OSError as exp:
                 if exp.errno != errno.EEXIST:
                     raise
-            key_file = open(filename, "w")
+            if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
+                key_file = open(filename, "w")
+            else:
+                key_file = open(filename, "w", encoding="utf-8")
             key_file.write(";; Gramps key file\n")
             key_file.write((";; Automatically created at %s" % 
                       time.strftime("%Y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S")) + "\n\n")