When creating SMCP immediately after successful servicemesh operator installation it sometimes fails with:

Error from server (InternalError): error when creating "/home/****/agent/workspace/kiali/install-jobs/install-maistra/to-archive/maistra-cr-istio-system.yaml": Internal error occurred: failed calling webhook "smcp.mutation.maistra.io": Post "https://maistra-admission-controller.openshift-operators.svc:443/mutate-smcp?timeout=10s": dial tcp 10.128.2.169:11999: connect: connection refused

Repro steps:

1. install servicemesh operator to openshift-operators NS with Installation mode: All namespaces on the cluster
2. wait for istio-operator pod to be running
3. create new namespace (oc create namespace istio-system)
4. wait for operator to be available in newly created namespace (until oc get csv -n istio-system 2>&1 | grep servicemeshoperator | grep Succeeded;do echo "Waiting for servicemeshoperator installation";sleep 10; done)
5. immediately create basic SMCP CR

It sometimes fails with:
Error from server (InternalError): error when creating "/home/****/agent/workspace/kiali/install-jobs/install-maistra/to-archive/maistra-cr-istio-system.yaml": Internal error occurred: failed calling webhook "smcp.mutation.maistra.io": Post "https://maistra-admission-controller.openshift-operators.svc:443/mutate-smcp?timeout=10s": dial tcp 10.128.2.169:11999: connect: connection refused

Note that after step 4 the servicemesh operator is available in given namespace:

servicemeshoperator.v2.1.0        Red Hat OpenShift Service Mesh     2.1.0-0               Succeeded

But the SMCP installation still sometimes fails.

User is forced to wait before creating SMCP CR even after successful operator installation.