TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str' when using sockets

Question

I have a basic script that I am using to fuzz vulnserver as part of a cyber security course.

I have an issue when my script goes to send the payload, A * 100 to the target server. I get an error as below:

TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'.

There are similar questions already on SO but they seem to deal with reading from files rather than sending requests via sockets.

While I am debugging the script I have added the try/except with the print() function as seen below but this is normally wrapped in the calling method.I was just trying to tie down exactly where the exception was happening.

I have tried using encode() in several places but this doesn't seem to have any effect.

The parent method is at the bottom and full solution is on Github

#!/usr/bin/python3

import socket
import sys

class Send:

    def __init__(self, target):
        self.ip = target.ip
        self.port = target.port
        self.path = target.path

    def send_payload(self, payload):
        try:
            s = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
            s.settimeout(2)
            s.connect((self.ip, self.port))
            s.recv(1024)

            s.send((self.path + payload))
            s.close()
        except Exception as e:
            print(f"Exception In send: {e}")
            sys.exit()

Called from here...

#!/usr/bin/python3

from time import sleep
from send_request import Send
import sys

def find_crash(target):

    buffer = "A" * 100
    s = Send(target)

    while True:
        try:
            s.send_payload(buffer)
            sleep(1)
            buffer = buffer + "A" * 100
        except Exception as e:
            print("Exception: " + str(e))
            return len(buffer)