Basically it means the query failed, but there can be several reasons for the failure. Some registrar whois servers always fail, or want you to go to their web site to do a whois query. (Either is against ICANN rules, but ICANN doesn't enforce them with any regularity or consistency). Also, some domain names may be in a state of limbo, where Internic's whois database says to query a certain registrar for the full whois info, but that registrar doesn't actually have it for any number of reasons (recently registered, transferred, expired, or just plain messed up). I'd definitely retry the lookup a few times over a couple days, and try different whois sites as suggested (could be specific to the machine that's issuing the whois query), but the problem could be more of a long-term issue.
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