diff --git a/.gitignore b/.gitignore
index 0a71eccf..2ac52fce 100644
--- a/.gitignore
+++ b/.gitignore
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 *.pyc
 *.swp
 *.egg
+.idea/*
 env/
 .venv/
 .eggs/
@@ -16,4 +17,4 @@ __pycache__/
 .coverage
 htmlcov/
 Pipfile*
-hold
\ No newline at end of file
+hold
diff --git a/src/falconpy/_util/_functions.py b/src/falconpy/_util/_functions.py
index 5912ee69..83477ace 100644
--- a/src/falconpy/_util/_functions.py
+++ b/src/falconpy/_util/_functions.py
@@ -41,9 +41,10 @@
 from warnings import warn
 from json import loads
 try:
-    from simplejson import JSONDecodeError
-except (ImportError, ModuleNotFoundError):  # Support import as a module
-    from json.decoder import JSONDecodeError
+    from simplejson import JSONDecodeError as SimplejsonJSONDecodeError
+except (ImportError, ModuleNotFoundError):
+    SimplejsonJSONDecodeError = None  # Support import as a module
+from json.decoder import JSONDecodeError as StdJSONDecodeError
 from typing import Dict, Any, Union, Optional, List, TYPE_CHECKING
 from copy import deepcopy
 from logging import Logger
@@ -85,6 +86,9 @@
 
 urllib3.disable_warnings(InsecureRequestWarning)
 
+# create a tuple of all possible JSONDecodeError types for exception handling
+JSONDecodeError = (SimplejsonJSONDecodeError, StdJSONDecodeError) if SimplejsonJSONDecodeError else (StdJSONDecodeError,)
+
 
 def validate_payload(validator: Dict[str, Any],
                      payload: Dict[str, Union[str, int, dict, list, bytes]],