diff --git a/kiloeyes/common/alarm_expr_parser.py b/kiloeyes/common/alarm_expr_parser.py
index d5f6379..987f15c 100755
--- a/kiloeyes/common/alarm_expr_parser.py
+++ b/kiloeyes/common/alarm_expr_parser.py
@@ -275,6 +275,7 @@ expression = (
 class AlarmExprParser(object):
     def __init__(self, expr):
         self._expr = expr
+        self._expr.encode('utf8').replace(' ', '')
         try:
             self.parseResult = (expression + pyparsing.stringEnd).parseString(
                 self._expr.replace(' ', ''))[0]
diff --git a/kiloeyes/common/kafka_conn.py b/kiloeyes/common/kafka_conn.py
index 326b57d..21798f6 100755
--- a/kiloeyes/common/kafka_conn.py
+++ b/kiloeyes/common/kafka_conn.py
@@ -47,9 +47,9 @@ KAFKA_OPTS = [
                 help=('Specify if the message received should be parsed. '
                       'If True, message will not be parsed, otherwise '
                       'messages will be parsed.')),
-    cfg.MultiOpt('partitions', item_type=types.Integer(),
-                 default=[0],
-                 help='The sleep time when no messages on kafka queue.'),
+    cfg.ListOpt('partitions', item_type=types.String(),
+                default=[0],
+                help='The sleep time when no messages on kafka queue.'),
     cfg.BoolOpt('drop_data', default=False,
                 help=('Specify if received data should be simply dropped. '
                       'This parameter is only for testing purposes.')),
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index fecbe12..26ef67b 100755
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -19,4 +19,4 @@ stevedore>=0.14
 ujson>=1.33
 babel
 eventlet
-pyparsing
+pyparsing==2.0.1