diff --git a/CHANGES/+fixed-error-reporting-and-json-metadata-handling.bugfix b/CHANGES/+fixed-error-reporting-and-json-metadata-handling.bugfix
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..66427dbe
--- /dev/null
+++ b/CHANGES/+fixed-error-reporting-and-json-metadata-handling.bugfix
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Fixed python syncs masking HTTP errors as stale metadata and handling native json list values in package metadata
diff --git a/pulp_python/app/utils.py b/pulp_python/app/utils.py
index 8838fa51..f4d06fa4 100644
--- a/pulp_python/app/utils.py
+++ b/pulp_python/app/utils.py
@@ -462,7 +462,7 @@ def json_to_dict(data):
         dictionary: of JSON string
 
     """
-    if isinstance(data, dict):
+    if isinstance(data, (dict, list)):
         return data
 
     return json.loads(data)