diff --git a/code/default/lib/noarch/tlslite/messages.py b/code/default/lib/noarch/tlslite/messages.py
index 0e27467d38..a18b6e7e5b 100644
--- a/code/default/lib/noarch/tlslite/messages.py
+++ b/code/default/lib/noarch/tlslite/messages.py
@@ -1268,6 +1268,7 @@ def _parse_compress(self, parser):
         compressed_content = parser.getFixBytes(compressed_length)
         parser.stopLengthCheck()
 
+        compressed_content = bytes(compressed_content)
         decompressed_content = brotli.decompress(compressed_content)
         if len(decompressed_content) != uncompressed_length:
             raise AssertionError()