diff --git a/lib/pt_upload.py b/lib/pt_upload.py
index 25b9e0c..2d4fbdf 100644
--- a/lib/pt_upload.py
+++ b/lib/pt_upload.py
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ def get_default_playlist(user_info):
 
 def get_playlist_by_name(user_info, options):
     for playlist in user_info["videoChannels"]:
-        if playlist['displayName'] == options.get('--playlist'):
+        if playlist['displayName'].encode('utf8') == str(options.get('--playlist')):
             return playlist['id']
 
 
diff --git a/lib/utils.py b/lib/utils.py
index 4234116..772ff6b 100644
--- a/lib/utils.py
+++ b/lib/utils.py
@@ -193,6 +193,7 @@ def parseNFO(options):
 def upcaseFirstLetter(s):
     return s[0].upper() + s[1:]
 
+
 def cleanString(toclean):
     toclean = toclean.split(' ')
     cleaned = ''
@@ -201,6 +202,8 @@ def cleanString(toclean):
             continue
         strtoclean = unicodedata.normalize('NFKD', unicode (s, 'utf-8')).encode('ASCII', 'ignore')
         strtoclean = ''.join(e for e in strtoclean if e.isalnum())
+        if strtoclean == '':
+            continue
         strtoclean = upcaseFirstLetter(strtoclean)
         cleaned = cleaned + strtoclean