diff --git a/requirements-swh.txt b/requirements-swh.txt
--- a/requirements-swh.txt
+++ b/requirements-swh.txt
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-swh.model >= 0.4.0
+swh.model >= 2.6.1
 swh.storage >= 0.22.0
 swh.scheduler >= 0.0.39
 swh.loader.core >= 0.18.0
diff --git a/swh/loader/mercurial/identify.py b/swh/loader/mercurial/identify.py
--- a/swh/loader/mercurial/identify.py
+++ b/swh/loader/mercurial/identify.py
@@ -314,7 +314,7 @@
     """Return the SWHID of the given path."""
     return CoreSWHID.from_string(
         identify_object(
-            "directory", follow_symlinks=True, exclude_patterns=[".hg"], obj=str(path)
+            "directory", follow_symlinks=True, exclude_patterns=[b".hg"], obj=str(path)
         )
     )