diff --git a/lib/ansible/modules/monitoring/grafana_dashboard.py b/lib/ansible/modules/monitoring/grafana_dashboard.py
index e974d865d4c..e04113af54a 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/modules/monitoring/grafana_dashboard.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/modules/monitoring/grafana_dashboard.py
@@ -140,6 +140,7 @@ import json
 from ansible.module_utils.basic import AnsibleModule
 from ansible.module_utils.urls import fetch_url, url_argument_spec
 from ansible.module_utils._text import to_native
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text
 
 __metaclass__ = type
 
@@ -182,8 +183,10 @@ def get_grafana_version(module, grafana_url, headers):
     r, info = fetch_url(module, '%s/api/frontend/settings' % grafana_url, headers=headers, method='GET')
     if info['status'] == 200:
         try:
-            settings = json.loads(r.read())
-            grafana_version = str.split(settings['buildInfo']['version'], '.')[0]
+            settings = json.loads(to_text(r.read()))
+            grafana_version = settings['buildInfo']['version'].split('.')[0]
+        except UnicodeError as e:
+            raise GrafanaAPIException('Unable to decode version string to Unicode')
         except Exception as e:
             raise GrafanaAPIException(e)
     else: