diff --git a/bot.py b/bot.py
index c0cb20a..be28ccd 100644
--- a/bot.py
+++ b/bot.py
@@ -17,8 +17,24 @@ class Socket:
 		if lines[-1]:
 			self._read_buffer=lines[-1]
 		lines.pop(-1)
-		lines = [line.decode("utf-8") for line in lines]
-		return lines
+		out = []
+		for line in lines:
+			# try to decode as UTF-8, then CP1252, then ISO-8859-1
+			# if none of them work then just ignore the line
+			try:
+				line = line.decode("utf-8")
+				out.append(line)
+			except:
+				try:
+					line = line.decode("cp1252")
+					out.append(line)
+				except:
+					try:
+						line = line.decode("iso-8859-1")
+						out.append(line)
+					except:
+						continue
+		return out
 	def send(self,line):
 		self.sock.send(line.encode("utf-8"))
 	def close(self):
@@ -166,9 +182,11 @@ class IRCBot:
 		self.running=True
 		while self.running:
 			lines = self.socket.read()
-			if lines:
-				for line in lines:
-					self.handle_line(line)
+			if lines is None: # socket dead for some reason
+				self.running = False
+				continue # exit loop
+			for line in lines:
+				self.handle_line(line)
 		self.socket.close()
 		del self.socket