the rhn-manage-channel-internal tool will throw an error if you lookup the details of a channel that does not have a description. Server side should know this is possible, and send back an empty string instead of trying to send None
To test: use rhn-manage-channel-internal --list to display a channel that does't have a description, ie: rhn-manage-channel-internal --server dev --list --label rhel-i386-as-3 This command should succeed, not ISE
On DEV OK -- tried rhn-manage-channel-internal --server dev --list --label rhel-i386-as-3 and one with description: rhn-manage-channel-internal --server dev --list --label rhel-i386-server-5
all set on qa