--- a/mercurial/localrepo.py	Mon Nov 04 23:44:10 2019 -0800
+++ b/mercurial/localrepo.py	Mon Nov 04 21:17:34 2019 -0800
@@ -1417,7 +1417,7 @@
 
     def _refreshchangelog(self):
         """make sure the in memory changelog match the on-disk one"""
-        if b'changelog' in vars(self) and self.currenttransaction() is None:
+        if 'changelog' in vars(self) and self.currenttransaction() is None:
             del self.changelog
 
     @property