diff --git a/lib/ansible/module_utils/netcfg.py b/lib/ansible/module_utils/netcfg.py
index e9bcc10035c..9a037ade9ce 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/module_utils/netcfg.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/module_utils/netcfg.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ import re
 import hashlib
 
 from ansible.module_utils.six.moves import zip
-from ansible.module_utils._text import to_bytes
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_bytes, to_native
 from ansible.module_utils.network_common import to_list
 
 DEFAULT_COMMENT_TOKENS = ['#', '!', '/*', '*/', 'echo']
@@ -205,6 +205,7 @@ class NetworkConfig(object):
     def parse(self, lines, comment_tokens=None):
         toplevel = re.compile(r'\S')
         childline = re.compile(r'^\s*(.+)$')
+        entry_reg = re.compile(r'([{};])')
 
         ancestors = list()
         config = list()
@@ -212,8 +213,8 @@ class NetworkConfig(object):
         curlevel = 0
         prevlevel = 0
 
-        for linenum, line in enumerate(str(lines).split('\n')):
-            text = str(re.sub(r'([{};])', '', line)).strip()
+        for linenum, line in enumerate(to_native(lines, errors='surrogate_or_strict').split('\n')):
+            text = entry_reg.sub('', line).strip()
 
             cfg = ConfigLine(line)
 
diff --git a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/iosxr_config.py b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/iosxr_config.py
index c68a18fcc9b..8d7ccaffedf 100644
--- a/lib/ansible/plugins/action/iosxr_config.py
+++ b/lib/ansible/plugins/action/iosxr_config.py
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ import time
 import glob
 
 from ansible.plugins.action.iosxr import ActionModule as _ActionModule
-from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text
+from ansible.module_utils._text import to_text, to_bytes
 from ansible.module_utils.six.moves.urllib.parse import urlsplit
 from ansible.utils.vars import merge_hash
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ class ActionModule(_ActionModule):
             os.remove(fn)
         tstamp = time.strftime("%Y-%m-%d@%H:%M:%S", time.localtime(time.time()))
         filename = '%s/%s_config.%s' % (backup_path, host, tstamp)
-        open(filename, 'w').write(contents)
+        open(filename, 'w').write(to_bytes(contents))
         return filename
 
     def _handle_template(self):