diff --git a/agkyra/syncer/utils.py b/agkyra/syncer/utils.py
index 99b7b6a981b160069a525cb1c1a415792bcd58c3..b682078718dc25c0ddd4a269640c469603064a6d 100644
--- a/agkyra/syncer/utils.py
+++ b/agkyra/syncer/utils.py
@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
 
 from agkyra.syncer.common import OBJECT_DIRSEP
 
-ENCODING = sys.getfilesystemencoding() or sys.getdefaultencoding()
+ENCODING = sys.getfilesystemencoding() or 'UTF-8'
 PLATFORM = sys.platform
 NODE = platform.node()