diff --git a/lib/damask/util.py b/lib/damask/util.py
index 93387205e..8727a1473 100644
--- a/lib/damask/util.py
+++ b/lib/damask/util.py
@@ -93,8 +93,10 @@ def execute(cmd,
                              stdout = subprocess.PIPE,
                              stderr = subprocess.PIPE,
                              stdin  = subprocess.PIPE)
-  out,error = [i.replace(b"\x08",b"") for i in (process.communicate() if streamIn is None
-                                                else process.communicate(streamIn.read()))]
+  out,error = [i for i in (process.communicate() if streamIn is None
+                                                 else process.communicate(streamIn.read().encode('utf-8')))]
+  out   = out.decode('utf-8').replace('\x08','')
+  error = error.decode('utf-8').replace('\x08','')
   os.chdir(initialPath)
   if process.returncode != 0: raise RuntimeError('{} failed with returncode {}'.format(cmd,process.returncode))
   return out,error
diff --git a/processing/post/addCurl.py b/processing/post/addCurl.py
index 5ca851b22..52a4ae438 100755
--- a/processing/post/addCurl.py
+++ b/processing/post/addCurl.py
@@ -138,7 +138,6 @@ for name in filenames:
 # --------------- figure out size and grid ---------------------------------------------------------
 
   table.data_readArray()
-
   grid,size = damask.util.coordGridAndSize(table.data[:,table.label_indexrange(options.pos)])
 
 # ------------------------------------------ process value field -----------------------------------