diff --git a/ietf/submit/parsers/plain_parser.py b/ietf/submit/parsers/plain_parser.py
index 1db738e69..10cf09aab 100644
--- a/ietf/submit/parsers/plain_parser.py
+++ b/ietf/submit/parsers/plain_parser.py
@@ -32,9 +32,15 @@ class PlainParser(FileParser):
     def parse_file_charset(self):
         import magic
         self.fd.file.seek(0)
-        m = magic.open(magic.MAGIC_MIME)
-        m.load()
-        filetype = m.buffer(self.fd.file.read())
+        if hasattr(magic, "open"):
+            m = magic.open(magic.MAGIC_MIME)
+            m.load()
+            filetype = m.buffer(content)
+        else:
+            m = magic.Magic()
+            m.cookie = magic.magic_open(magic.MAGIC_NONE | magic.MAGIC_MIME | magic.MAGIC_MIME_ENCODING)
+            magic.magic_load(m.cookie, None)
+            filetype = m.from_buffer(content)
         if not 'ascii' in filetype:
             self.parsed_info.add_error('A plain text document must be submitted.')
 
diff --git a/ietf/utils/textupload.py b/ietf/utils/textupload.py
index eeb6d141d..1a4dbe705 100644
--- a/ietf/utils/textupload.py
+++ b/ietf/utils/textupload.py
@@ -18,10 +18,15 @@ def get_cleaned_text_file_content(uploaded_file):
 
     # try to fixup encoding
     import magic
-    m = magic.open(magic.MAGIC_MIME)
-    m.load()
-
-    filetype = m.buffer(content) # should look like "text/plain; charset=us-ascii"
+    if hasattr(magic, "open"):
+        m = magic.open(magic.MAGIC_MIME)
+        m.load()
+        filetype = m.buffer(content)
+    else:
+        m = magic.Magic()
+        m.cookie = magic.magic_open(magic.MAGIC_NONE | magic.MAGIC_MIME | magic.MAGIC_MIME_ENCODING)
+        magic.magic_load(m.cookie, None)
+        filetype = m.from_buffer(content)
 
     if not filetype.startswith("text"):
         raise django.forms.ValidationError("Uploaded file does not appear to be a text file.")