This is a clone of issue OCPBUGS-53180. The following is the description of the original issue:
—
The network-console-plugin is degraded and it is showing "Failed to get a valid plugin manifest from /api/plugins/networking-console-plugin/"

Below are the errors from the logs:

Console pod logs shows below:

$ oc logs console-69f759dd97-wc2tm -n openshift-console
2025-03-10T12:46:04.270027809Z E0310 12:46:04.269937       1 handlers.go:164] failed to send GET request for "networking-console-plugin" plugin: Get "https://networking-console-plugin.openshift-network-console.svc.cluster.local:9443/plugin-manifest.json": dial tcp [fd02::40d8]:9443: connect: connection refused

Console operator pod logs shows:

$  oc logs pod/console-operator-58897d9998-bxwrs -n openshift-console-operator

2025-03-12T06:32:00.929616322Z E0312 06:32:00.929556       1 sync_v400.go:642] failed to get "odf-client-console" plugin: consoleplugin.console.openshift.io "odf-client-console" not found

However, the odf-console plugin and the other plugins such as monitoring are also enabled, but the plugin manifest for networking-console-plugin is not available and reports the  stated error - Failed to get a valid plugin manifest from /api/plugins/networking-console-plugin/
Cluster ID: 01243e29-2ea7-434e-9a93-0dde4f27a9a9
Cluster Version: 4.18.1(unverified)
Desired Version: 4.18.1
Channel: stable-4.18
Previous Version(s): 
 
Infrastructure
--------------
Platform: BareMetal
Control Plane Topology: HighlyAvailable
apiServerInternalIP: 2405:200:8a4:2302:b00::1
apiServerInternalIPs: 2405:200:8a4:2302:b00::1
ingressIP: 2405:200:8a4:2302:b00::2
ingressIPs: 2405:200:8a4:2302:b00::2
loadBalancer: None
machineNetworks: 2405:200:8a4:2302::/64
Install Type: infrastructure-operator
 
Network
-------
Network Type: OVNKubernetes
httpProxy: None
httpsProxy: None
Cluster network: fd01::/48
Host prefix: 64
Max nodes: 65536
Max pods per node: 18446744073709551616
 

The customer is using a new cluster with version 4.18, while they also have another 4.18 cluster where this issue is not present.