diff --git a/lib/galaxy/datatypes/binary.py b/lib/galaxy/datatypes/binary.py
index 1ba208f2c6f..f9193e86432 100644
--- a/lib/galaxy/datatypes/binary.py
+++ b/lib/galaxy/datatypes/binary.py
@@ -2112,6 +2112,7 @@ class SearchGuiArchive(CompressedArchive):
                     if 'searchgui.properties' in tempzip.namelist():
                         with tempzip.open('searchgui.properties') as fh:
                             for line in fh:
+                                line = line.decode()
                                 if line.startswith('searchgui.version'):
                                     version = line.split('=')[1].strip()
                                     dataset.metadata.searchgui_version = version