Problem with autojump script - unsupported pickle protocol - Debian Testing

[Stephane Duchesne <sduchesne.ml@gmail.com>]

Dear all,

I'm running Debian Testing and I have a problem with a python script
called autojump:

#dpkg --info autojump_15-1_all.deb
#
#new debian package, version 2.0.
# size 11186 bytes: control archive= 928 bytes.
#     612 bytes,    17 lines      control              
#     750 bytes,    11 lines      md5sums              
# Package: autojump
# Version: 15-1
# Architecture: all
# Maintainer: Tanguy Ortolo <tanguy+debian@ortolo.eu>
# Installed-Size: 116
# Depends: python
# Enhances: bash, zsh, zsh-beta
# Section: shells
# Priority: optional
# Homepage: http://wiki.github.com/joelthelion/autojump/
# Description: shell extension to jump to frequently used directories
#  autojump provides is a faster way to navigate your filesystem, with a
#  "cd command that learns".
#  .
#  It works by maintaining a database of the directories you use the
#  most from
#  the command line, and allows you to "jump" to frequently used
#  directories by
#  typing only a small pattern.

It's a excellent piece of kit that has been saving me some time on other
distro's.

However, on Debian whenever I try to run it (or the command jumpstat),
it gives me this error:

#Traceback (most recent call last):
#  File "/usr/bin/autojump", line 236, in <module>
#    success=shell_utility()
#  File "/usr/bin/autojump", line 157, in shell_utility
#    path_dict = open_dic(dic_file)
#  File "/usr/bin/autojump", line 132, in open_dic
#    path_dict = pickle.load(aj_file)
#ValueError: unsupported pickle protocol: 3

What I tried so far:

I got recommended a possible fix on the GitHub page: 
# https://github.com/int3/autojump/commit/5d949f4e8a23c937653917f2e6bde81f2402c29e

suggesting me to patch the script and force it to use pickle protocol 2
by

#-        pickle.dump(path_dict, temp, -1)
#+        pickle.dump(path_dict, temp, 2)

This did not work.  

I'm rather new to python and Debian and would like to know how to
proceed.
Does anybody experience the same problem or else could anybody point me
into the right direction?

Thank you,

Stephane