Index: tests/pybin/tools.py
===================================================================
--- tests/pybin/tools.py	(revision 1bb2488f0c626690cd402a7004cd0df0db3e31d2)
+++ tests/pybin/tools.py	(revision 2b10f958db325dea85128cd85f1c1c9c8a596962)
@@ -37,12 +37,15 @@
 	# otherwise create a pipe and run the desired command
 	else :
-		proc = subprocess.run(
-			cmd,
-			stdout=None if print2stdout else PIPE,
-			stderr=STDOUT,
-			shell=True,
-			timeout=settings.timeout.single if timeout else None
-		)
-		return proc.returncode, proc.stdout
+		try:
+			proc = subprocess.run(
+				cmd,
+				stdout=None if print2stdout else PIPE,
+				stderr=STDOUT,
+				shell=True,
+				timeout=settings.timeout.single if timeout else None
+			)
+			return proc.returncode, proc.stdout.decode("utf-8") if proc.stdout else None
+		except subprocess.TimeoutExpired:
+			return 124, str(None)
 
 def is_ascii(fname):