diff --git a/panel/auth.py b/panel/auth.py
index 8c30c43896..a9f5a19b11 100644
--- a/panel/auth.py
+++ b/panel/auth.py
@@ -37,7 +37,10 @@ def decode_response_body(response):
     Decoded response content
     """
     # Fix GitHub response.
-    body = codecs.decode(response.body, 'ascii')
+    try:
+        body = codecs.decode(response.body, 'ascii')
+    except Exception:
+        body = codecs.decode(response.body, 'utf-8')
     body = re.sub('"', '\"', body)
     body = re.sub("'", '"', body)
     body = json.loads(body)