diff --git a/gateway/main.go b/gateway/main.go
index 19477285..c290cc41 100644
--- a/gateway/main.go
+++ b/gateway/main.go
@@ -137,7 +137,7 @@ func main() {
 	scalingConfig := scaling.ScalingConfig{
 		MaxPollCount:         uint(1000),
 		SetScaleRetries:      uint(20),
-		FunctionPollInterval: time.Millisecond * 50,
+		FunctionPollInterval: time.Millisecond * 100,
 		CacheExpiry:          time.Second * 5, // freshness of replica values before going stale
 		ServiceQuery:         externalServiceQuery,
 	}
diff --git a/gateway/plugin/external.go b/gateway/plugin/external.go
index c75e6bfc..3ab61f90 100644
--- a/gateway/plugin/external.go
+++ b/gateway/plugin/external.go
@@ -63,14 +63,16 @@ func (s ExternalServiceQuery) GetReplicas(serviceName, serviceNamespace string)
 
 	urlPath := fmt.Sprintf("%ssystem/function/%s?namespace=%s", s.URL.String(), serviceName, serviceNamespace)
 
-	req, _ := http.NewRequest(http.MethodGet, urlPath, nil)
+	req, err := http.NewRequest(http.MethodGet, urlPath, nil)
+	if err != nil {
+		return emptyServiceQueryResponse, err
+	}
 
 	if s.AuthInjector != nil {
 		s.AuthInjector.Inject(req)
 	}
 
 	res, err := s.ProxyClient.Do(req)
-
 	if err != nil {
 		log.Println(urlPath, err)
 	} else {