title: Django attempting to load binary data as String
body: <p>When accessing my django site, it is attempting to load a PNG image as a string. What is causing this error? The exact error and traceback is as follows: </p>
  
  <pre><code>UnicodeDecodeError at /home/
  'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x89 in position 0: invalid start byte
  Request Method: GET
  Request URL:    http://localhost:8080/home/
  Django Version: 1.5.5
  Exception Type: UnicodeDecodeError
  Exception Value:    
  'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0x89 in position 0: invalid start byte
  Exception Location: /usr/lib/python2.7/encodings/utf_8.py in decode, line 16
  Python Executable:  /home/michael/bin/python
  Python Version: 2.7.9
  Python Path:    
  ['/home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp',
   '/home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/djangoappengine/lib',
   '/home/michael/code/appengine/google_appengine',
   '/home/michael/code/appengine/google_appengine',
   '/usr/lib/python2.7',
   '/usr/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload',
   '/home/michael/code/appengine/google_appengine/lib/protorpc-1.0',
   '/home/michael/code/appengine/google_appengine/lib/webapp2-2.3',
   '/home/michael/code/appengine/google_appengine/lib/webob-1.1.1',
   '/home/michael/code/appengine/google_appengine/lib/yaml-3.10',
   '/home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/apps',
   '/home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/libs']
  Server time:    Wed, 8 Jul 2015 23:17:18 +0000
  Unicode error hint
  
  The string that could not be encoded/decoded was: �PNG
  &lt;br /&gt;
  Traceback Switch to copy-and-paste view
  
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/django/core/handlers/base.py in get_response
                          response = callback(request, *callback_args, **callback_kwargs) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/apps/site_pages/views.py in landing_page
          logged_user = get_logged_user(request)
   ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/libs/helpers.py in get_logged_user
          profile_info['school'] = profile.school
   ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/django/db/models/fields/related.py in __get__
                  rel_obj = qs.get(**params) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/django/db/models/query.py in get
          num = len(clone) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/django/db/models/query.py in __len__
                  self._result_cache = list(self.iterator()) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/django/db/models/query.py in iterator
          for row in compiler.results_iter(): ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/djangotoolbox/db/basecompiler.py in results_iter
              yield self._make_result(entity, fields) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/djangotoolbox/db/basecompiler.py in _make_result
                  value = self.ops.value_from_db(value, field) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/djangotoolbox/db/base.py in value_from_db
          return self._value_from_db(value, *self._convert_as(field)) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /home/michael/code/schoolapp/projectSchoolApp/djangoappengine/db/base.py in _value_from_db
                  value = value.decode('utf-8') ...
  ▶ Local vars
  /usr/lib/python2.7/encodings/utf_8.py in decode
      return codecs.utf_8_decode(input, errors, True) ...
  ▶ Local vars
  </code></pre>