diff --git a/CHANGELOG b/CHANGELOG
index 6d22801c9b4..94f433991ad 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG
+++ b/CHANGELOG
@@ -8,6 +8,9 @@ NEXT
 - fix issue437 where assertion rewriting could cause pytest-xdist slaves
   to collect different tests. Thanks Bruno Oliveira.
 
+- fix issue555: add "errors" attribute to capture-streams to satisfy
+  some distutils and possibly other code accessing sys.stdout.errors.
+
 - fix issue547 capsys/capfd also work when output capturing ("-s") is disabled.
 
 - address issue170: allow pytest.mark.xfail(...) to specify expected exceptions via
diff --git a/_pytest/__init__.py b/_pytest/__init__.py
index 35cf9d65221..d832fbf12b1 100644
--- a/_pytest/__init__.py
+++ b/_pytest/__init__.py
@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
 #
-__version__ = '2.6.1.dev2'
+__version__ = '2.6.1.dev3'
diff --git a/_pytest/capture.py b/_pytest/capture.py
index f2445d7b5ba..0b7f615bc12 100644
--- a/_pytest/capture.py
+++ b/_pytest/capture.py
@@ -223,6 +223,7 @@ def safe_text_dupfile(f, mode, default_encoding="UTF8"):
 
 
 class EncodedFile(object):
+    errors = "strict"  # possibly needed by py3 code (issue555)
     def __init__(self, buffer, encoding):
         self.buffer = buffer
         self.encoding = encoding
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 1c34bb2c0de..8c0807b21e9 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ def main():
         name='pytest',
         description='pytest: simple powerful testing with Python',
         long_description=long_description,
-        version='2.6.1.dev2',
+        version='2.6.1.dev3',
         url='http://pytest.org',
         license='MIT license',
         platforms=['unix', 'linux', 'osx', 'cygwin', 'win32'],
diff --git a/testing/test_capture.py b/testing/test_capture.py
index 591b6761deb..28199fb913b 100644
--- a/testing/test_capture.py
+++ b/testing/test_capture.py
@@ -1012,3 +1012,13 @@ def test_capturing_and_logging_fundamentals(testdir, method):
     """)
     assert "atexit" not in result.stderr.str()
 
+
+def test_error_attribute_issue555(testdir):
+    testdir.makepyfile("""
+        import sys
+        def test_capattr():
+            assert sys.stdout.errors == "strict"
+            assert sys.stderr.errors == "strict"
+    """)
+    reprec = testdir.inline_run()
+    reprec.assertoutcome(passed=1)