diff --git a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/access_response.py b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/access_response.py
index 0784ed8923..415781757d 100644
--- a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/access_response.py
+++ b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/access_response.py
@@ -124,12 +124,11 @@ class StartDateError(AccessError):
     def __init__(self, start_date):
         error_code = "course_not_started"
         if start_date == DEFAULT_START_DATE:
-            developer_message = "Course has not started"
-            user_message = _("Course has not started")
+            developer_message = u"Course has not started"
+            user_message = _(u"Course has not started")
         else:
-            developer_message = "Course does not start until {}".format(start_date)
-            user_message = _("Course does not start until {}"
-                             .format("{:%B %d, %Y}".format(start_date)))
+            developer_message = u"Course does not start until {}".format(start_date)
+            user_message = _(u"Course does not start until {}").format("{:%B %d, %Y}".format(start_date))
         super(StartDateError, self).__init__(error_code, developer_message, user_message)
 
 
@@ -139,8 +138,8 @@ class MilestoneAccessError(AccessError):
     """
     def __init__(self):
         error_code = "unfulfilled_milestones"
-        developer_message = "User has unfulfilled milestones"
-        user_message = _("You have unfulfilled milestones")
+        developer_message = u"User has unfulfilled milestones"
+        user_message = _(u"You have unfulfilled milestones")
         super(MilestoneAccessError, self).__init__(error_code, developer_message, user_message)
 
 
@@ -151,8 +150,8 @@ class VisibilityError(AccessError):
     """
     def __init__(self):
         error_code = "not_visible_to_user"
-        developer_message = "Course is not visible to this user"
-        user_message = _("You do not have access to this course")
+        developer_message = u"Course is not visible to this user"
+        user_message = _(u"You do not have access to this course")
         super(VisibilityError, self).__init__(error_code, developer_message, user_message)
 
 
@@ -162,8 +161,8 @@ class MobileAvailabilityError(AccessError):
     """
     def __init__(self):
         error_code = "mobile_unavailable"
-        developer_message = "Course is not available on mobile for this user"
-        user_message = _("You do not have access to this course on a mobile device")
+        developer_message = u"Course is not available on mobile for this user"
+        user_message = _(u"You do not have access to this course on a mobile device")
         super(MobileAvailabilityError, self).__init__(error_code, developer_message, user_message)
 
 
@@ -192,5 +191,5 @@ class NoAllowedPartitionGroupsError(AccessError):
     """
     def __init__(self, partition, user_message=None, user_fragment=None):
         error_code = "no_allowed_user_groups"
-        developer_message = "Group access for {} excludes all students".format(partition.name)
+        developer_message = u"Group access for {} excludes all students".format(partition.name)
         super(NoAllowedPartitionGroupsError, self).__init__(error_code, developer_message, user_message)
diff --git a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/courses.py b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/courses.py
index caccff1313..73edd42bad 100644
--- a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/courses.py
+++ b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/courses.py
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ def get_course_by_id(course_key, depth=0):
     if course:
         return course
     else:
-        raise Http404("Course not found: {}.".format(unicode(course_key)))
+        raise Http404(u"Course not found: {}.".format(unicode(course_key)))
 
 
 def get_course_with_access(user, action, course_key, depth=0, check_if_enrolled=False, check_survey_complete=True):
diff --git a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/index.py b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/index.py
index a9768fc1af..a8af5b970b 100644
--- a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/index.py
+++ b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/index.py
@@ -151,7 +151,7 @@ class CoursewareIndex(View):
 
                 return self.render(request)
         except Exception as exception:  # pylint: disable=broad-except
-            return CourseTabView.handle_exceptions(request, self.course, exception)
+            return CourseTabView.handle_exceptions(request, self.course_key, self.course, exception)
 
     def _setup_masquerade_for_effective_user(self):
         """
@@ -315,7 +315,7 @@ class CoursewareIndex(View):
             if not child:
                 # User may be trying to access a child that isn't live yet
                 if not self._is_masquerading_as_student():
-                    raise Http404('No {block_type} found with name {url_name}'.format(
+                    raise Http404(u'No {block_type} found with name {url_name}'.format(
                         block_type=block_type,
                         url_name=url_name,
                     ))
diff --git a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/views.py b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/views.py
index 18a5b220ac..33cc4969ee 100644
--- a/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/views.py
+++ b/lms/djangoapps/courseware/views/views.py
@@ -509,7 +509,7 @@ class CourseTabView(EdxFragmentView):
                 set_custom_metrics_for_course_key(course_key)
                 return super(CourseTabView, self).get(request, course=course, page_context=page_context, **kwargs)
             except Exception as exception:  # pylint: disable=broad-except
-                return CourseTabView.handle_exceptions(request, course, exception)
+                return CourseTabView.handle_exceptions(request, course_key, course, exception)
 
     @staticmethod
     def url_to_enroll(course_key):
@@ -560,14 +560,12 @@ class CourseTabView(EdxFragmentView):
                     )
 
     @staticmethod
-    def handle_exceptions(request, course, exception):
-        """
+    def handle_exceptions(request, course_key, course, exception):
+        u"""
         Handle exceptions raised when rendering a view.
         """
         if isinstance(exception, Redirect) or isinstance(exception, Http404):
             raise
-        if isinstance(exception, UnicodeEncodeError):
-            raise Http404("URL contains Unicode characters")
         if settings.DEBUG:
             raise
         user = request.user
@@ -576,7 +574,7 @@ class CourseTabView(EdxFragmentView):
             request.path,
             getattr(user, 'real_user', user),
             user,
-            None if course is None else text_type(course.id),
+            text_type(course_key),
         )
         try:
             return render_to_response(
diff --git a/pylintrc b/pylintrc
index f664b86f3e..33c88dfa0d 100644
--- a/pylintrc
+++ b/pylintrc
@@ -55,7 +55,7 @@
 [MASTER]
 ignore = ,.git,.tox,migrations,node_modules,.pycharm_helpers
 persistent = yes
-load-plugins = edx_lint.pylint,pylint_django,pylint_celery
+load-plugins = edx_lint.pylint,pylint_django,pylint_celery,caniusepython3.pylint_checker
 init-hook = "import sys; sys.path.extend(['lms/djangoapps', 'cms/djangoapps', 'common/djangoapps'])"
 
 [MESSAGES CONTROL]
@@ -345,7 +345,9 @@ disable =
 	unpacking-in-except,
 	using-cmp-argument,
 	xrange-builtin,
-	zip-builtin-not-iterating,,unicode-format-string
+	zip-builtin-not-iterating,
+	unicode-format-string,
+	native-string,
 
 [REPORTS]
 output-format = text
@@ -445,4 +447,4 @@ int-import-graph =
 [EXCEPTIONS]
 overgeneral-exceptions = Exception
 
-# c8b8d35a9a123f3c2eb3ce0cb466156bab2beedc
+# 4285ece9aa125ff8efc6f77ed6d34579e65e2d96
diff --git a/pylintrc_tweaks b/pylintrc_tweaks
index 6b4126f96c..e813d8b6ca 100644
--- a/pylintrc_tweaks
+++ b/pylintrc_tweaks
@@ -2,10 +2,13 @@
 [MASTER]
 ignore+ = ,.git,.tox,migrations,node_modules,.pycharm_helpers
 init-hook="import sys; sys.path.extend(['lms/djangoapps', 'cms/djangoapps', 'common/djangoapps'])"
+load-plugins+=,caniusepython3.pylint_checker
 
 [MESSAGES CONTROL]
 # Disable unicode-format-string until we can agree to turn it on.
-disable+ = ,unicode-format-string
+disable+ =
+    unicode-format-string,
+    native-string,
 
 [BASIC]
 attr-rgx = [a-z_][a-z0-9_]{2,40}$
diff --git a/requirements/edx/development.txt b/requirements/edx/development.txt
index 243052590d..4653142f18 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/development.txt
+++ b/requirements/edx/development.txt
@@ -64,6 +64,7 @@ bok-choy==0.9.0
 boto3==1.4.8
 boto==2.39.0
 botocore==1.8.17
+caniusepython3==7.0.0
 celery==3.1.25
 certifi==2018.11.29
 cffi==1.11.5
@@ -84,6 +85,7 @@ decorator==4.3.2
 defusedxml==0.5.0
 dicttoxml==1.7.4
 diff-cover==0.9.8
+distlib==0.2.8
 django-appconf==1.0.2
 django-babel-underscore==0.5.2
 django-babel==0.6.2
@@ -224,7 +226,7 @@ oauth2==1.9.0.post1
 oauthlib==2.1.0
 openapi-codec==1.3.2
 pa11ycrawler==1.6.2
-packaging==19.0           # via sphinx
+packaging==19.0
 parsel==1.5.1
 path.py==8.2.1
 pathlib2==2.3.3
diff --git a/requirements/edx/testing.in b/requirements/edx/testing.in
index cb63e2fe57..2c644b78ae 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/testing.in
+++ b/requirements/edx/testing.in
@@ -20,6 +20,7 @@
 beautifulsoup4            # Library for extracting data from HTML and XML files
 before_after              # Syntactic sugar for mock, only used in one test case, not Python 3 compatible
 bok-choy                  # Framework for browser automation tests, based on selenium
+caniusepython3            # Library for checking the ability to upgrade to python3
 cssselect                 # Used to extract HTML fragments via CSS selectors in 2 test cases and pyquery
 ddt                       # Run a test case multiple times with different input; used in many, many of our tests
 edx-i18n-tools>=0.4.6     # Commands for developers and translators to extract, compile and validate translations
diff --git a/requirements/edx/testing.txt b/requirements/edx/testing.txt
index 687babe620..ba777092e5 100644
--- a/requirements/edx/testing.txt
+++ b/requirements/edx/testing.txt
@@ -61,6 +61,7 @@ bok-choy==0.9.0
 boto3==1.4.8
 boto==2.39.0
 botocore==1.8.17
+caniusepython3==7.0.0
 celery==3.1.25
 certifi==2018.11.29
 cffi==1.11.5
@@ -81,6 +82,7 @@ decorator==4.3.2
 defusedxml==0.5.0
 dicttoxml==1.7.4          # via moto
 diff-cover==0.9.8
+distlib==0.2.8            # via caniusepython3
 django-appconf==1.0.2
 django-babel-underscore==0.5.2
 django-babel==0.6.2
@@ -216,6 +218,7 @@ oauth2==1.9.0.post1
 oauthlib==2.1.0
 openapi-codec==1.3.2
 pa11ycrawler==1.6.2
+packaging==19.0           # via caniusepython3
 parsel==1.5.1             # via scrapy
 path.py==8.2.1
 pathlib2==2.3.3           # via pytest, pytest-django