diff --git a/hgext/remotefilelog/shallowutil.py b/hgext/remotefilelog/shallowutil.py
--- a/hgext/remotefilelog/shallowutil.py
+++ b/hgext/remotefilelog/shallowutil.py
@@ -420,7 +420,7 @@
 
 def getgid(groupname):
     try:
-        gid = grp.getgrnam(groupname).gr_gid
+        gid = grp.getgrnam(pycompat.fsdecode(groupname)).gr_gid
         return gid
     except KeyError:
         return None