diff --git a/i3status-mt-json-a-optimized b/i3status-mt-json-a-optimized
index 0bf337e..e855519 100755
--- a/i3status-mt-json-a-optimized
+++ b/i3status-mt-json-a-optimized
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ use POSIX;
 
 use JSON::PP;
 use utf8;
+use Encode;
 use open qw(:std :utf8);
 
 use threads;
@@ -104,14 +105,10 @@ while (1) {
 		$json = $json->canonical(1);
 		$json = $json->space_before(0);
 		$json = $json->space_after(0);
-		$json = $json->indent(1);
+		$json = $json->indent(0);
 		my $str = $json->encode($a);
 		undef $json;
-
-		if ((utf8::valid($str)) and utf8::decode($string)) {
-			syswrite STDOUT, $str . ",\n";
-		}
-
+		syswrite STDOUT, $str . ",\n";
 		undef $str;
 		$shoot = 0;
 	}
@@ -195,6 +192,9 @@ sub getfocusedwidowtitlestr() {
 		$str = ' ';
 	}
 
+	# not sure about utf-8-ness of this chunk, so try to check it
+	$str = eval { decode('UTF-8', $str, Encode::FB_CROAK) } // ' ';
+
 	return $str;
 }