diff --git a/Lib/test/test_codecs.py b/Lib/test/test_codecs.py
index 36cebd5..9a4f35f 100644
--- a/Lib/test/test_codecs.py
+++ b/Lib/test/test_codecs.py
@@ -27,11 +27,20 @@
     def test_empty_escape_decode(self):
         self.assertEquals(codecs.escape_decode(""), ("", 0))
 
+class RecodingTest(unittest.TestCase):
+    def test_recoding(self):
+        f = StringIO.StringIO()
+        f2 = codecs.EncodedFile(f, "unicode_internal", "utf-8")
+        f2.write(u"a")
+        f2.close()
+        # Python used to crash on this at exit because of a refcount
+        # bug in _codecsmodule.c
 
 def test_main():
     suite = unittest.TestSuite()
     suite.addTest(unittest.makeSuite(UTF16Test))
     suite.addTest(unittest.makeSuite(EscapeDecodeTest))
+    suite.addTest(unittest.makeSuite(RecodingTest))
     test_support.run_suite(suite)
 
 
diff --git a/Modules/_codecsmodule.c b/Modules/_codecsmodule.c
index cd19ab5..210be51 100644
--- a/Modules/_codecsmodule.c
+++ b/Modules/_codecsmodule.c
@@ -167,8 +167,10 @@
 			  &obj, &errors))
 	return NULL;
 
-    if (PyUnicode_Check(obj))
+    if (PyUnicode_Check(obj)) {
+	Py_INCREF(obj);
 	return codec_tuple(obj, PyUnicode_GET_SIZE(obj));
+    }
     else {
 	if (PyObject_AsReadBuffer(obj, (const void **)&data, &size))
 	    return NULL;