diff --git a/bin/ansible-connection b/bin/ansible-connection
index 676cd70223b..dcbcea0d949 100755
--- a/bin/ansible-connection
+++ b/bin/ansible-connection
@@ -41,8 +41,6 @@ import syslog
 import datetime
 import logging
 
-from io import BytesIO
-
 from ansible import constants as C
 from ansible.module_utils._text import to_bytes, to_native
 from ansible.module_utils.six import PY3
@@ -214,7 +212,10 @@ class Server():
                             display.display("socket operation is CONTEXT", log_only=True)
                             pc_data = data.split(b'CONTEXT: ', 1)[1]
 
-                            pc_data = cPickle.loads(pc_data)
+                            if PY3:
+                                pc_data = cPickle.loads(pc_data, encoding='bytes')
+                            else:
+                                pc_data = cPickle.loads(pc_data)
 
                             pc = PlayContext()
                             pc.deserialize(pc_data)
@@ -267,11 +268,14 @@ def main():
         cur_line = stdin.readline()
         init_data = b''
         while cur_line.strip() != b'#END_INIT#':
-            if cur_line  == b'':
+            if cur_line == b'':
                 raise Exception("EOF found before init data was complete")
             init_data += cur_line
             cur_line = stdin.readline()
-        pc_data = cPickle.loads(init_data)
+        if PY3:
+            pc_data = cPickle.loads(init_data, encoding='bytes')
+        else:
+            pc_data = cPickle.loads(init_data)
 
         pc = PlayContext()
         pc.deserialize(pc_data)
diff --git a/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py b/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py
index c8269f50ca4..dcf58e485b1 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/module_utils/service.py
@@ -176,8 +176,8 @@ def daemonize(module, cmd):
         # even after fds close, we might want to wait for pid to die
         p.wait()
 
-        # Return a pickled data o parent
-        return_data = pickle.dumps([p.returncode, to_text(output[p.stdout]), to_text(output[p.stderr])])
+        # Return a pickled data of parent
+        return_data = pickle.dumps([p.returncode, to_text(output[p.stdout]), to_text(output[p.stderr])], protocol=pickle.HIGHEST_PROTOCOL)
         os.write(pipe[1], to_bytes(return_data, errors=errors))
 
         # clean up
@@ -202,7 +202,10 @@ def daemonize(module, cmd):
                     break
                 return_data += b(data)
 
-        return pickle.loads(to_text(return_data, errors=errors))
+        # Note: no need to specify encoding on py3 as this module sends the
+        # pickle to itself (thus same python interpreter so we aren't mixing
+        # py2 and py3)
+        return pickle.loads(to_bytes(return_data, errors=errors))
 
 def check_ps(module, pattern):
 
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/cache/pickle.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/cache/pickle.py
index bf61071b0fb..3ac025170d2 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/cache/pickle.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/cache/pickle.py
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ try:
 except ImportError:
     import pickle
 
+from ansible.module_utils.six import PY3
 from ansible.plugins.cache import BaseFileCacheModule
 
 class CacheModule(BaseFileCacheModule):
@@ -43,7 +44,10 @@ class CacheModule(BaseFileCacheModule):
     def _load(self, filepath):
         # Pickle is a binary format
         with open(filepath, 'rb') as f:
-            return pickle.load(f)
+            if PY3:
+                return pickle.load(f, encoding='bytes')
+            else:
+                return pickle.load(f)
 
     def _dump(self, value, filepath):
         with open(filepath, 'wb') as f: