diff --git a/webservice/webservice.py b/webservice/webservice.py
index 44d673f7298324ba0ccb00f195a3c1f737669b00..2663b27f416e6db59aff20cb3c95cd9734528c00 100644
--- a/webservice/webservice.py
+++ b/webservice/webservice.py
@@ -967,7 +967,7 @@ class ActionsServer:
                 # A correction is already running for this run
                 msg = Success.ALREADY_REQUESTED.format(proposal, runnr)
                 logging.debug(msg)
-                return msg
+                return msg.encode()
 
             with time_db_transaction(self.job_db, 'Insert request'):
                 cur = self.job_db.execute(  # 2
@@ -1093,7 +1093,7 @@ class ActionsServer:
                 # A correction is already running for this run
                 msg = Success.ALREADY_REQUESTED.format(proposal, runnr)
                 logging.debug(msg)
-                return msg
+                return msg.encode()
 
             with time_db_transaction(self.job_db, 'Insert request'):
                 cur = self.job_db.execute(
@@ -1388,7 +1388,7 @@ class ActionsServer:
             "INNER JOIN requests USING (req_id) "
             "WHERE proposal = ? AND run = ? AND action = 'CORRECT' "
             "  AND slurm_jobs.finished = 0", (proposal, runnr)
-        )
+        ).fetchone()
         return row is not None
 
     @staticmethod