diff --git a/front-end/source/kernel/runtime/xdash-runtime-main.js b/front-end/source/kernel/runtime/xdash-runtime-main.js
index 72a1619f..e718820c 100644
--- a/front-end/source/kernel/runtime/xdash-runtime-main.js
+++ b/front-end/source/kernel/runtime/xdash-runtime-main.js
@@ -143,7 +143,10 @@ var RuntimeDashboard = (function () {
   }
 
   async function loadDashboard(jsonContent, exportOptions) {
-    var decodedData = $('<textarea />').html(JSON.stringify(jsonContent.data)).text(); // MBG : find a better method
+    let decodedData = JSON.stringify(jsonContent.data); // fix bug in properly handling characters for JSON parsing
+    decodedData = decodedData.replace(/[\u007F-\uFFFF]/g, function (chr) {
+      return '\\u' + ('0000' + chr.charCodeAt(0).toString(16)).substr(-4);
+    });
     var data_json = '';
     try {
       data_json = JSON.parse(decodedData);