diff --git a/src/calibre/gui2/actions/copy_to_library.py b/src/calibre/gui2/actions/copy_to_library.py
index d4d021e599..b763c9e8a2 100644
--- a/src/calibre/gui2/actions/copy_to_library.py
+++ b/src/calibre/gui2/actions/copy_to_library.py
@@ -500,7 +500,7 @@ class CopyToLibraryAction(InterfaceAction):
                         'records in the target library. Click "Show '
                         'details" to see which ones. This behavior is '
                         'controlled by the Auto-merge option in '
-                        'Preferences->Import/export->Adding books.'), det_msg=books,
+                        'Preferences->Import/export->Adding books->Adding actions.'), det_msg=books,
                     show=True)
         done_ids = frozenset(self.worker.processed) - frozenset(self.worker.duplicate_ids)
         if delete_after and done_ids:
diff --git a/src/calibre/gui2/ebook_download.py b/src/calibre/gui2/ebook_download.py
index 4bfbcf4ac3..25899cd210 100644
--- a/src/calibre/gui2/ebook_download.py
+++ b/src/calibre/gui2/ebook_download.py
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ from calibre.gui2.threaded_jobs import ThreadedJob
 from calibre.ptempfile import PersistentTemporaryDirectory
 from calibre.utils.filenames import ascii_filename
 from calibre.web import get_download_filename_from_response
-from polyglot.builtins import string_or_bytes
+from polyglot.builtins import string_or_bytes, as_unicode
 
 
 class DownloadInfo(MessageBox):
@@ -128,7 +128,7 @@ gui_ebook_download = EbookDownload()
 
 
 def start_ebook_download(callback, job_manager, gui, cookie_file=None, url='', filename='', save_loc='', add_to_lib=True, tags=[], create_browser=None):
-    description = _('Downloading %s') % filename.decode('utf-8', 'ignore') if filename else url.decode('utf-8', 'ignore')
+    description = _('Downloading %s') % as_unicode(filename or url, errors='replace')
     job = ThreadedJob('ebook_download', description, gui_ebook_download, (
         gui, cookie_file, url, filename, save_loc, add_to_lib, tags, create_browser), {},
                       callback, max_concurrent_count=2, killable=False)
@@ -145,7 +145,7 @@ class EbookDownloadMixin(object):
             if isinstance(tags, string_or_bytes):
                 tags = tags.split(',')
         start_ebook_download(Dispatcher(self.downloaded_ebook), self.job_manager, self, cookie_file, url, filename, save_loc, add_to_lib, tags, create_browser)
-        self.status_bar.show_message(_('Downloading') + ' ' + filename.decode('utf-8', 'ignore') if filename else url.decode('utf-8', 'ignore'), 3000)
+        self.status_bar.show_message(_('Downloading') + ' ' + as_unicode(filename or url, errors='replace'), 3000)
 
     def downloaded_ebook(self, job):
         if job.failed: