diff --git a/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py b/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py
--- a/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py
+++ b/rhodecode/lib/__init__.py
@@ -232,6 +232,7 @@ def safe_str(unicode_, to_encoding=None)
     :returns: str object
     """
     
+    # if it's not basestr cast to str
     if not isinstance(unicode_, basestring):
         return str(unicode_)