diff --git a/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py b/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py
index f94934d89..d1e73c4a7 100644
--- a/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py
+++ b/gramps/gen/plug/_pluginreg.py
@@ -1083,7 +1083,9 @@ class PluginRegister(object):
             full_filename = os.path.join(dir, filename)
             if sys.version_info[0] < 3:
                 full_filename = full_filename.encode(glocale.getfilesystemencoding())
-            fd = io.open(full_filename, 'r', encoding = 'utf-8')
+                fd = io.open(full_filename, 'r')
+            else:
+                fd = io.open(full_filename, 'r', encoding = 'utf-8')
             stream = fd.read()
             fd.close()
             if os.path.exists(os.path.join(os.path.dirname(full_filename),