From 9bdcbcb4308d8a66be18c3ec7f8d88e888c59fda Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Erik Stein <erik@classlibrary.net>
Date: Mon, 1 Apr 2019 18:56:19 +0200
Subject: [PATCH] Don't force None to "none" string.

---
 shared/utils/text.py | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/shared/utils/text.py b/shared/utils/text.py
index 375b963..e4d6af8 100644
--- a/shared/utils/text.py
+++ b/shared/utils/text.py
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ def downgrade(value):
     """
     Downgrade unicode to ascii, transliterating accented characters.
     """
-    value = force_text(value)
+    value = force_text(value or "")
     return codecs.encode(value, 'translit/long')