diff -Nru sosreport-3.5/debian/changelog sosreport-3.5/debian/changelog
--- sosreport-3.5/debian/changelog	2018-04-12 04:48:13.000000000 -0400
+++ sosreport-3.5/debian/changelog	2018-06-05 10:52:56.000000000 -0400
@@ -1,3 +1,11 @@
+sosreport (3.5-1ubuntu4) cosmic; urgency=medium
+
+  * d/p/Fix-string-decoding-for-debug-log-output.patch:
+    Fix bug in _collect_strings that causes error trying to str.decode()
+    (LP: #1761442)
+
+ -- Dan Streetman <ddstreet@canonical.com>  Tue, 05 Jun 2018 10:52:56 -0400
+
 sosreport (3.5-1ubuntu3) bionic; urgency=medium
 
   * Avoid using distutils during runtime.
diff -Nru sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/Fix-string-decoding-for-debug-log-output.patch sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/Fix-string-decoding-for-debug-log-output.patch
--- sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/Fix-string-decoding-for-debug-log-output.patch	1969-12-31 19:00:00.000000000 -0500
+++ sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/Fix-string-decoding-for-debug-log-output.patch	2018-06-05 10:51:36.000000000 -0400
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+Origin: upstream, https://github.com/sosreport/sos/commit/476bd7f324dcfa8189860400bc83e7aaaa86f174
+From: Dan Streetman <ddstreet@canonical.com>
+Subject: [PATCH] [Plugin] Fix string decoding for debug log output
+Bug: https://github.com/sosreport/sos/issues/1266
+Bug-Ubuntu: https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1761442
+
+In add_string_as_file and _collect_strings, the first line of each
+string is printed to debug log, however there is a bug in
+_collect_strings that tries to decode the first line of '...'
+instead of the actual string; this causes a error like:
+
+  File "/usr/share/sosreport/sos/sosreport.py", line 1300, in collect
+    plug.collect()
+  File "/usr/share/sosreport/sos/plugins/__init__.py", line 877, in collect
+    self._collect_strings()
+  File "/usr/share/sosreport/sos/plugins/__init__.py", line 860, in _collect_strings
+    (content.splitlines()[0]).decode('utf8', 'ignore'))
+AttributeError: 'str' object has no attribute 'decode'
+
+This simplifies the (string or bytearray)-to-first-line-string of both
+functions, which also fixes the bug using the wrong variable to decode.
+
+Signed-off-by: Dan Streetman <ddstreet@canonical.com>
+Signed-off-by: Bryn M. Reeves <bmr@redhat.com>
+
+--- a/sos/plugins/__init__.py
++++ b/sos/plugins/__init__.py
+@@ -703,12 +703,10 @@
+     def add_string_as_file(self, content, filename):
+         """Add a string to the archive as a file named `filename`"""
+         self.copy_strings.append((content, filename))
+-        if isinstance(content, six.string_types):
+-            content = "..." + content.splitlines()[0]
+-        else:
+-            content = ("..." +
+-                       (content.splitlines()[0]).decode('utf8', 'ignore'))
+-        self._log_debug("added string '%s' as '%s'" % (content, filename))
++        content = content.splitlines()[0]
++        if not isinstance(content, six.string_types):
++            content = content.decode('utf8', 'ignore')
++        self._log_debug("added string ...'%s' as '%s'" % (content, filename))
+ 
+     def get_cmd_output_now(self, exe, suggest_filename=None,
+                            root_symlink=False, timeout=300, stderr=True,
+@@ -852,13 +850,10 @@
+ 
+     def _collect_strings(self):
+         for string, file_name in self.copy_strings:
+-            content = "..."
+-            if isinstance(string, six.string_types):
+-                content = "..." + content.splitlines()[0]
+-            else:
+-                content = ("..." +
+-                           (content.splitlines()[0]).decode('utf8', 'ignore'))
+-            self._log_info("collecting string '%s' as '%s'"
++            content = string.splitlines()[0]
++            if not isinstance(content, six.string_types):
++                content = content.decode('utf8', 'ignore')
++            self._log_info("collecting string ...'%s' as '%s'"
+                            % (content, file_name))
+             try:
+                 self.archive.add_string(string,
diff -Nru sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/series sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/series
--- sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/series	2018-04-12 04:46:58.000000000 -0400
+++ sosreport-3.5/debian/patches/series	2018-06-05 10:43:50.000000000 -0400
@@ -2,3 +2,4 @@
 0002-reset-to-expected-variable-order-for-packagemanager.patch
 0003-fix-name-containers-is-not-defined.patch
 avoid-distutils.diff
+Fix-string-decoding-for-debug-log-output.patch