diff --git a/src/opnsense/scripts/suricata/lib/rulecache.py b/src/opnsense/scripts/suricata/lib/rulecache.py
index 54e32e2c7..24bf8023f 100644
--- a/src/opnsense/scripts/suricata/lib/rulecache.py
+++ b/src/opnsense/scripts/suricata/lib/rulecache.py
@@ -170,6 +170,7 @@ class RuleCache(object):
             os.remove(self.cachefile)
 
         db = sqlite3.connect(self.cachefile)
+        db.text_factory = lambda x: unicode(x, 'utf-8', 'ignore')
         cur = db.cursor()
 
         cur.execute("create table stats (timestamp number, files number)")