diff --git a/magpierss/rss_fetch.inc b/magpierss/rss_fetch.inc
index dd475e31d..77a1a704f 100644
--- a/magpierss/rss_fetch.inc
+++ b/magpierss/rss_fetch.inc
@@ -313,7 +313,7 @@ function _convert_entities ($string) {
     Output:     parsed RSS object (see rss_parse)
 \*=======================================================================*/
 function _response_to_rss ($resp) {
-    $converted_source = _convert_entities(mb_convert_encoding($resp->results, "UTF-8", mb_detect_encoding($resp->results)));
+    $converted_source = _convert_entities($resp->results);
     $rss = new MagpieRSS( $converted_source, MAGPIE_OUTPUT_ENCODING, "UTF-8", false);
     
     // if RSS parsed successfully       
diff --git a/magpierss/rss_parse.inc b/magpierss/rss_parse.inc
index 0b2ddc83a..8a67523b5 100644
--- a/magpierss/rss_parse.inc
+++ b/magpierss/rss_parse.inc
@@ -132,7 +132,33 @@ class MagpieRSS {
         xml_set_character_data_handler( $this->parser, 'feed_cdata' ); 
     
         $status = xml_parse( $this->parser, $source );
+
+		  # try to force convert everything to UTF-8 and parse again
+		  # to salvage at least some data from the feed 
+		  if (! $status) {
+            $errorcode = xml_get_error_code( $this->parser );
+				if ( $errorcode != XML_ERROR_NONE ) {
+
+					xml_parser_free( $this->parser );
+
+					list($parser, $source) = $this->create_parser($source, 
+	                $output_encoding, $input_encoding, $detect_encoding);
+
+					$source = mb_convert_encoding($source, "UTF-8",
+						 mb_detect_encoding($source));
+
+			      $this->parser = $parser;
         
+		        xml_set_object( $this->parser, $this );
+		        xml_set_element_handler($this->parser, 
+	                'feed_start_element', 'feed_end_element' );
+                        
+		        xml_set_character_data_handler( $this->parser, 'feed_cdata' ); 
+
+				  $status = xml_parse( $this->parser, $source);
+				}
+			}
+
         if (! $status ) {
             $errorcode = xml_get_error_code( $this->parser );
             if ( $errorcode != XML_ERROR_NONE ) {