Dict object has no attribute split issue for etheruem setup

I’m facing an issue while running cert-issuer -c conf.ini and I have the following in my ethereum_requirments.txt file:
coincurve==7.1.0
rlp<1
ethereum==2.3.1

Here’s the complete Traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/bin/cert-issuer", line 11, in <module>
    load_entry_point('cert-issuer==2.0.22', 'console_scripts', 'cert-issuer')()
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cert_issuer-2.0.22-py3.5.egg/cert_issuer/__main__.py", line 17, in cert_issuer_main
    issue_certificates.main(parsed_config)
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cert_issuer-2.0.22-py3.5.egg/cert_issuer/issue_certificates.py", line 36, in main
    return issue(app_config, certificate_batch_handler, transaction_handler)
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cert_issuer-2.0.22-py3.5.egg/cert_issuer/issue_certificates.py", line 22, in issue
    tx_id = issuer.issue(app_config.chain)
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cert_issuer-2.0.22-py3.5.egg/cert_issuer/issuer.py", line 27, in issue
    txid = self.transaction_handler.issue_transaction(blockchain_bytes)
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cert_issuer-2.0.22-py3.5.egg/cert_issuer/blockchain_handlers/ethereum/transaction_handlers.py", line 61, in issue_transaction
    self.verify_transaction(signed_tx, eth_data_field)
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cert_issuer-2.0.22-py3.5.egg/cert_issuer/blockchain_handlers/ethereum/transaction_handlers.py", line 92, in verify_transaction
    tx_utils.verify_eth_transaction(signed_tx, eth_data_field)
  File "/Users/abdul/PycharmProjects/cert-issuer/venv/lib/python3.5/site-packages/cert_issuer-2.0.22-py3.5.egg/cert_issuer/blockchain_handlers/ethereum/tx_utils.py", line 24, in verify_eth_transaction
    for s in signed_hextx.split('80a0'):
AttributeError: 'dict' object has no attribute 'split'

This error saying that you are trying to use a function that is not available on dict. In most cases, you try to use the python split() method on a dict, you get the error “AttributeError: ‘dict’ object has no attribute ‘split’”. Dict in python do not have a split method. split is a method of strings(str.split())