Puppet users - Feb 2014 - puppet agent gives error undefined method `empty?' for nil:NilClass

I have a puppet master which has over 50 puppet agents talking to it just 
fine.  But I have one particular server on which the agent, after 
connecting and exchanging keys, gives the following error:

Error: Could not retrieve catalog from remote server: Error 400 on SERVER: 
undefined method `empty?' for nil:NilClass at 
/etc/puppet/modules/server/iptables/manifests/init.pp:7 on node 
curatevanilla.library.nd.edu
Warning: Not using cache on failed catalog
Error: Could not retrieve catalog; skipping run

Having read other posts, and knowing that we do use hiera, this looks like 
a hiera problem.  If I comment out classes which don't use hiera, the agent 
will run them all.  But add any in which use hiera and that will be the 
class which fails (iptables above is just the first one it hits).

How do I best track down where the problem really is?  I have made sure 
that the /etc/hiera.yaml file is in place and it matches other servers 
which work.  I've tried clearing out /var/lib/puppet on the server and 
letting that get rebuilt.  If I move /var/lib/hiera out of the way, it does 
not get rebuilt, probably because the download does not get that far.  Any 
suggestions on what might allow me to find the conflict. 

Thanks,
Tom

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