diff --git a/bazarr/list_subtitles.py b/bazarr/list_subtitles.py
index 51c85ac15..63ac0a1b6 100644
--- a/bazarr/list_subtitles.py
+++ b/bazarr/list_subtitles.py
@@ -417,9 +417,21 @@ def guess_external_subtitles(dest_folder, subtitles):
                     detected_language = guess_language(text)
                 except UnicodeDecodeError:
                     detector = Detector()
-                    guess = detector.detect(text)
-                    logging.debug('BAZARR detected encoding %r', guess)
-                    text = text.decode(guess)
+                    try:
+                        guess = detector.detect(text)
+                    except:
+                        logging.debug("BAZARR skipping this subtitles because we can't guess the encoding. "
+                                      "It's probably a binary file: " + subtitle_path)
+                        continue
+                    else:
+                        logging.debug('BAZARR detected encoding %r', guess)
+                        try:
+                            text = text.decode(guess)
+                        except:
+                            logging.debug(
+                                "BAZARR skipping this subtitles because we can't decode the file using the "
+                                "guessed encoding. It's probably a binary file: " + subtitle_path)
+                            continue
                     detected_language = guess_language(text)
                 except:
                     logging.debug('BAZARR was unable to detect encoding for this subtitles file: %r', subtitle_path)
@@ -438,10 +450,10 @@ def guess_external_subtitles(dest_folder, subtitles):
             subtitle_path = os.path.join(dest_folder, subtitle)
 
             # to improve performance, skip detection of files larger that 1M
-            #if os.path.getsize(subtitle_path) > 1 * 1024 * 1024:
-            #    logging.debug("BAZARR subtitles file is too large to be text based. Skipping this file: " +
-            #                  subtitle_path)
-            #    continue
+            if os.path.getsize(subtitle_path) > 1 * 1024 * 1024:
+                logging.debug("BAZARR subtitles file is too large to be text based. Skipping this file: " +
+                              subtitle_path)
+                continue
 
             with open(subtitle_path, 'rb') as f:
                 text = f.read()
@@ -450,13 +462,20 @@ def guess_external_subtitles(dest_folder, subtitles):
                 text = text.decode('utf-8')
             except UnicodeDecodeError:
                 detector = Detector()
-                guess = detector.detect(text)
-                logging.debug('BAZARR detected encoding %r', guess)
                 try:
-                    text = text.decode(guess)
+                    guess = detector.detect(text)
                 except:
-                    # text could not be decoded with guessed encoding, we wont try to detect HI fo rthis one
+                    logging.debug("BAZARR skipping this subtitles because we can't guess the encoding. "
+                                  "It's probably a binary file: " + subtitle_path)
                     continue
+                else:
+                    logging.debug('BAZARR detected encoding %r', guess)
+                    try:
+                        text = text.decode(guess)
+                    except:
+                        logging.debug("BAZARR skipping this subtitles because we can't decode the file using the "
+                                      "guessed encoding. It's probably a binary file: " + subtitle_path)
+                        continue
 
             if bool(re.search(hi_regex, text)):
                 subtitles[subtitle] = Language.rebuild(subtitles[subtitle], forced=False, hi=True)