diff --git a/lib/OpenQA/Schema/Result/Jobs.pm b/lib/OpenQA/Schema/Result/Jobs.pm
index 7db6c63c548..5af589bef8a 100644
--- a/lib/OpenQA/Schema/Result/Jobs.pm
+++ b/lib/OpenQA/Schema/Result/Jobs.pm
@@ -1029,7 +1029,7 @@ sub append_log ($self, $log, $file_name) {
     my $path = $self->worker->get_property('WORKER_TMPDIR');
     return unless -d $path;    # we can't help
     $path .= "/$file_name";
-    if (open(my $fd, '>>', $path)) {
+    if (open(my $fd, '>>:utf8', $path)) {
         print $fd $log->{data};
         close($fd);
     }
diff --git a/lib/OpenQA/WebAPI/Controller/Running.pm b/lib/OpenQA/WebAPI/Controller/Running.pm
index 65e057b3dce..f71c9c8b358 100644
--- a/lib/OpenQA/WebAPI/Controller/Running.pm
+++ b/lib/OpenQA/WebAPI/Controller/Running.pm
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@ sub streamtext ($self, $file_name, $start_hook = undef, $close_hook = undef) {
     # if the open fails, continue, well check later
     my $log;
     my ($ino, $size);
-    if (open($log, '<', $logfile)) {
+    if (open($log, '<:utf8', $logfile)) {
         # Send the last 10KB of data from the logfile, so that
         # the client sees some data immediately
         $ino = (stat $logfile)[1];
@@ -122,7 +122,7 @@ sub streamtext ($self, $file_name, $start_hook = undef, $close_hook = undef) {
         TEXT_STREAMING_INTERVAL() => sub {
             if (!$ino) {
                 # log file was not yet opened
-                return unless open($log, '<', $logfile);
+                return unless open($log, '<:utf8', $logfile);
                 $ino = (stat $logfile)[1];
                 $size = -s $logfile;
             }
diff --git a/lib/OpenQA/Worker/Job.pm b/lib/OpenQA/Worker/Job.pm
index c49cb364f2b..49b40518a08 100644
--- a/lib/OpenQA/Worker/Job.pm
+++ b/lib/OpenQA/Worker/Job.pm
@@ -25,6 +25,7 @@ use Try::Tiny;
 use Scalar::Util 'looks_like_number';
 use File::Map 'map_file';
 use List::Util 'max';
+use Encode 'decode';
 
 # define attributes for public properties
 has 'worker';
@@ -1238,7 +1239,7 @@ sub _log_snippet {
     sysseek($fd, $offset, Fcntl::SEEK_SET);    # FIXME: handle error?
     if (defined sysread($fd, my $buf = '', 100000)) {
         $ret{offset} = $offset;
-        $ret{data} = $buf;
+        $ret{data} = decode('utf-8', $buf);
     }
     if (my $new_offset = sysseek($fd, 0, Fcntl::SEEK_CUR)) {
         $self->{"_$offset_name"} = $new_offset;
diff --git a/templates/webapi/step/viewimg.html.ep b/templates/webapi/step/viewimg.html.ep
index 41db70e4f2c..a10b7a6e0cd 100644
--- a/templates/webapi/step/viewimg.html.ep
+++ b/templates/webapi/step/viewimg.html.ep
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-% use Mojo::JSON 'encode_json';
+% use Mojo::JSON 'to_json';
 <div class="aligncenter" data-image="<%= url_for('test_img', filename => $screenshot) %>" id="step_view">
     <span class="candidate_needles">
         Candidate needles and tags:
@@ -37,8 +37,8 @@
                                 <tbody>
                                     % for my $needle (@{$needles_by_tag->{$tag}}) {
                                         <tr data-image="<%= $needle->{image} %>"
-                                            data-areas="<%= encode_json($needle->{areas})%>"
-                                            data-matches="<%= encode_json($needle->{matches}) %>"
+                                            data-areas="<%= to_json($needle->{areas}) %>"
+                                            data-matches="<%= to_json($needle->{matches}) %>"
                                             data-label="<%= $needle->{label} %>"
                                         % if (!$has_selection && $needle->{selected}) {
                                             % $has_selection = 1;