DomainTools Blog

I was doing some Whois Queries on the command line today and I ran into the most ludicrous error message which beats all other error messages. If anything goes wrong on Rebel.com’s the Domain Registrar Whois Server they output an error message that is so ambiguous it doesn’t help the user at all. I was presented with Seventeen different reasons for no display of whois information. Any of the conditions could apply but no further detail was given. Without further delay here is the whois error message that they gave me:

We are unable to process your request at this time. The whois information is unavailable for this domain for one of the following reasons:

(1) Too many simultaneous connections from your host;
(2) The domain you requested is not with this Registrar;
(3) You have exceeded your query limit;
(4) Your IP address has been restricted;
(5) Whois data is not available for this domain - check back in 48 hours when our server is updated;
(6) Access has been restricted to ensure operational stability;
(7) A system error has occurred;
(8) The time limit for your request has expired;
(9) The IP address provided is not valid or the host specified by the IP address does not exist;
(10) There is an error in what you have inputed or requested;
(11) An unknown error has occurred;
(12) The domain is not currently registered;
(13) The domain you requested contains invalid characters;
(14) The domain you requested is too long;
(15) The domain you requested begins or ends with a dash;
(16) The domain you requested is a third or fourth level domain;
(17) You did not specify a domain name.

In this case I was looking up a domain name that was 8 hours old. So I assume I hit error condition “(7) A system error has occurred.”

I love error condition number 6 though. “Access has been restricted to ensure Operational Stability”. That is really funny. Sounds like something the Security and Stability Advisory Committee (SecSac) would say.

Seventeen reasons a query might have failed is no help to anyone. Hopefully Rebel can fix their error logic to pinpoint the error and give people a more narrow error in the future.