diff --git a/rocketmq/client.py b/rocketmq/client.py
index 873e0cb..f1db810 100644
--- a/rocketmq/client.py
+++ b/rocketmq/client.py
@@ -21,8 +21,10 @@
 PY2 = sys.version_info[0] == 2
 if PY2:
     text_type = unicode
+    binary_type = str
 else:
     text_type = str
+    binary_type = bytes
 
 SendResult = namedtuple('SendResult', ['status', 'msg_id', 'offset'])
 
@@ -69,7 +71,7 @@
 
 
 def maybe_decode(val):
-    if val:
+    if isinstance(val, binary_type):
         return val.decode('utf-8')
 
 
diff --git a/rocketmq/exceptions.py b/rocketmq/exceptions.py
index 8ea4906..5beb83f 100644
--- a/rocketmq/exceptions.py
+++ b/rocketmq/exceptions.py
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
         return
     exc_cls = _EXCEPTION_MAP.get(status_code, RocketMQException)
     msg = dll.GetLatestErrorMessage()
-    if msg:
+    if msg is not None:
         msg = msg.decode('utf-8')
         msg = re.sub('<.*?(rocketmq-client-cpp/)(.*)>', '\\1\\2', msg)
         if msg.startswith('msg: '):