diff --git a/lib/core/common.py b/lib/core/common.py
index 80b54dda8..db0bd65f8 100644
--- a/lib/core/common.py
+++ b/lib/core/common.py
@@ -1829,7 +1829,7 @@ def filterControlChars(value):
     Returns string value with control
     chars being supstituted with ' '
     """
-    return filterStringValue(output, NON_CONTROL_CHAR_REGEX, ' ')
+    return filterStringValue(value, NON_CONTROL_CHAR_REGEX, ' ')
 
 def isDBMSVersionAtLeast(version):
     """
diff --git a/lib/request/basicauthhandler.py b/lib/request/basicauthhandler.py
index cb6f63eea..abbb57d3c 100644
--- a/lib/request/basicauthhandler.py
+++ b/lib/request/basicauthhandler.py
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ class SmartHTTPBasicAuthHandler(urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler):
     """
     def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
         urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler.__init__(self, *args, **kwargs)
-        self.retried_req = []
+        self.retried_req = set()
 
     def reset_retry_count(self):
         # Python 2.6.5 will call this on 401 or 407 errors and thus loop
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ class SmartHTTPBasicAuthHandler(urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler):
     def http_error_auth_reqed(self, auth_header, host, req, headers):
         # Reset the retry counter once for each request.
         if hash(req) not in self.retried_req:
-            self.retried_req.append(hash(req))
+            self.retried_req.add(hash(req))
             self.retried = 0
         return urllib2.HTTPBasicAuthHandler.http_error_auth_reqed(
                         self, auth_header, host, req, headers)