diff --git a/wakatime/base.py b/wakatime/base.py
index ee1419a..3270557 100644
--- a/wakatime/base.py
+++ b/wakatime/base.py
@@ -33,11 +33,14 @@ from .compat import u, open, is_py3
 from .logger import setup_logging
 from .offlinequeue import Queue
 from .packages import argparse
-from .packages import simplejson as json
 from .packages.requests.exceptions import RequestException
 from .project import get_project_info
 from .session_cache import SessionCache
 from .stats import get_file_stats
+try:
+    from .packages import simplejson as json
+except (ImportError, SyntaxError):
+    import json
 try:
     from .packages import tzlocal
 except:  # pragma: nocover
diff --git a/wakatime/logger.py b/wakatime/logger.py
index 2dc453e..2ec303f 100644
--- a/wakatime/logger.py
+++ b/wakatime/logger.py
@@ -13,12 +13,15 @@ import logging
 import os
 import sys
 
-from .packages import simplejson as json
 from .compat import u
 try:
     from collections import OrderedDict
 except ImportError:
     from .packages.ordereddict import OrderedDict
+try:
+    from .packages import simplejson as json
+except (ImportError, SyntaxError):
+    import json
 
 
 class CustomEncoder(json.JSONEncoder):