Unable to validate the token: Get "": unsupported protocol scheme ""

Question

I have a simple KrakenD pod running in kubernetes cluster (version 2.4.3). I have enabled JWT authentication for one endpoint, and used the jwk_local_path key to mention the jwk public keys kept inside the pod in /etc/krakend/jwks.json. After port-forwarding the KrakenD service to 8000, when I'm trying to hit the protected endpoint (http://localhost:8000/api/activity) with correct JWT token, I see the below error logs:

KRAKEND ERROR: [ENDPOINT: /api/activity][JWTValidator] Unable to validate the token: Get "": unsupported protocol scheme "" [GIN] 2024/02/29 - 12:07:26 | 401 | 244.663µs | 10.177.118.250 | GET "/api/activity"** Attaching my krakend.json config file below.

{
  "version": 3,
  "$schema": "https://www.krakend.io/schema/v2.4/krakend.json",
  "debug_endpoint": true,
  "extra_config": {
    "security/cors": {
      "allow_origins": ["*"],
      "expose_headers": ["Content-Length"],
      "max_age": "12h",
      "allow_methods": ["GET", "HEAD", "POST"]
    },
    "telemetry/logging": {
      "level": "DEBUG",
      "prefix": "[KRAKEND]",
      "syslog": true,
      "stdout": true,
      "format": "default",
      "syslog_facility": "local3"
    }
  },
  "endpoints": [
    {
      "endpoint": "/api/activity",
      "method": "GET",
      "input_headers": ["*"],
      "output_encoding": "json",
      "extra_config": {
        "auth/validator": {
          "alg": "RS512",
          "jwk_local_path": "/etc/krakend/jwks.json",
          "cache": false,
          "disable_jwk_security": true,
          "operation_debug": true
        }
      },
      "backend": [
        {
          "url_pattern": "/api/activity",
          "extra_config": {
            "backend/http": {
              "return_error_details": "backend_alias"
            }
          },
          "method": "GET",
          "host": ["https://www.boredapi.com"]
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}

I think it's not reaching upto the validation step and throwing protocol scheme error before that. KrakenD __health endpoint still works fine. Any help where I might be wrong in the setup?