whois returns exit 1 for certain tlds

Update: I spoke a little too soon: the Trusty binary works fine for .org domains, but for .bz domains it also returns exit 1.

Please report example domains which show this behaviour. Also, the whois version in 12.04 is very old and nobody should use it.

I didn't have a Precise system handy right now, but on Trusty try warcommander.bz

$ dpkg -l whois
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Architecture Description
+++-==============-============-============-=================================
ii whois 5.1.1 amd64 intelligent WHOIS client

$ whois warcommander.bz
Access to CCTLD WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in
determining the contents of a domain name registration record in the
Afilias registry database. The data in this record is provided by
Afilias Limited for informational purposes only, and Afilias does not
guarantee its accuracy. This service is intended only for query-based
access. You agree that you will use this data only for lawful purposes
and that, under no circumstances will you use this data to: (a) allow,
enable, or otherwise support the transmission by e-mail, telephone, or
facsimile of mass unsolicited, commercial advertising or solicitations
to entities other than the data recipient's own existing customers; or
(b) enable high volume, automated, electronic processes that send
queries or data to the systems of Registry Operator, a Registrar, or
Afilias except as reasonably necessary to register domain names or
modify existing registrations. All rights reserved. Afilias reserves
the right to modify these terms at any time. By submitting this query,
you agree to abide by this policy.

Domain ID:D2315418-LRCC
Domain Name:WARCOMMANDER.BZ
Created On:27-Jun-2012 20:54:54 UTC
Last Updated On:06-May-2015 10:35:49 UTC
Expiration Date:27-Jun-2016 20:54:54 UTC
Sponsoring Registrar:GoDaddy.com Inc. (R111-LRCC)
Status:CLIENT DELETE PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT RENEW PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT TRANSFER PROHIBITED
Status:CLIENT UPDATE PROHIBITED
Name Server:NS1.KIXEYE.COM
Name Server:NS2.KIXEYE.COM
Name Server:NS3.KIXEYE.COM
Name Server:NS4.KIXEYE.COM
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:
Name Server:

$ echo $?
1
$

The .bz TLD apparently has a thin registry model, but some (all?) domains registered using GoDaddy lack the proper referral to the GoDaddy whois server, which is reported by the program with an error status. This looks like an error in the registry data, since a manual query to whois.godaddy.com will return the "missing" data. I will try to further investigate this.

I can confirm #1

This is fixed in upstream. It's not clear if a minimal fix can be found and applied to trusty and xenial. I've made the latest Debian version available in my stable PPA at https://launchpad.net/~r0lf/+archive/ubuntu/stable for people to use.

I do not have a Xenial system to test if that is affected as well.