--- cloudinit/sources/helpers/openstack.py.orig
+++ cloudinit/sources/helpers/openstack.py
@@ -291,7 +291,10 @@ class BaseReader(object):
         if 'random_seed' in metadata:
             random_seed = metadata['random_seed']
             try:
-                metadata['random_seed'] = base64.b64decode(random_seed)
+                metadata['random_seed'] = u'%s' % base64.b64decode(random_seed)
+            except UnicodeDecodeError:
+                # Did not decode as expected, probably utf-8 already
+                metadata['random_seed'] = random_seed 
             except (ValueError, TypeError) as e:
                 raise BrokenMetadata("Badly formatted metadata"
                                      " random_seed entry: %s" % e)