diff --git a/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py b/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py
index 0e1899494e..6be5bebe5a 100644
--- a/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py
+++ b/evennia/utils/dbserialize.py
@@ -30,7 +30,7 @@ except ImportError:
 from django.core.exceptions import ObjectDoesNotExist
 from django.contrib.contenttypes.models import ContentType
 from django.utils.safestring import SafeString, SafeBytes
-from evennia.utils.utils import uses_database, is_iter
+from evennia.utils.utils import uses_database, is_iter, to_str, to_bytes
 from evennia.utils import logger
 
 __all__ = ("to_pickle", "from_pickle", "do_pickle", "do_unpickle",
@@ -679,7 +679,7 @@ def do_pickle(data):
 
 def do_unpickle(data):
     """Retrieve pickle from pickled string"""
-    return loads(data)
+    return loads(to_bytes(data))
 
 
 def dbserialize(data):
diff --git a/evennia/utils/picklefield.py b/evennia/utils/picklefield.py
index 834249e1f1..06ea5de0a4 100644
--- a/evennia/utils/picklefield.py
+++ b/evennia/utils/picklefield.py
@@ -58,7 +58,7 @@ try:
 except ImportError:
     from pickle import loads, dumps  # cpython 3.x, other interpreters
 
-DEFAULT_PROTOCOL = 2
+DEFAULT_PROTOCOL = 4
 
 
 class PickledObject(str):