Description of problem:
Creating ICNI2 SPK pods with right annotation is failing with the error -"failed to configure pod interface: error while waiting on flows for pod: timed out waiting for OVS flows"

Pod annotations for ICNI2:
apiVersion: v1
kind: Pod
metadata:
  annotations:
    k8s.ovn.org/bfd-enabled: "true"
    k8s.ovn.org/pod-networks: '{"default":{"ip_addresses":["10.131.10.106/23"],"mac_address":"0a:58:0a:83:0a:6a","gateway_ips":["10.131.10.1"],"ip_address":"10.131.10.106/23","gateway_ip":"10.131.10.1"}}'
    k8s.ovn.org/routing-namespaces: served-ns-1
    k8s.ovn.org/routing-network: serving-ns-1/sriov-net-ens2f0-1
    k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/networks: '[{ "name": "sriov-net-ens2f0-1", "ips": [ "192.168.217.1/21" ]}]'

Logs from ovnkube-master pods,

I1007 19:56:57.700178       1 pods.go:343] LSP already exists for port: serving-ns-1_pod-serving-1-1-serving-job
2021-10-07T19:56:57.709Z|26993|nbctl|INFO|Running command run -- add address_set fe5dbc40-9d1d-4328-b5b8-1fa97aacc6ab addresses "\"10.131.10.106\""                                                                                          
I1007 19:56:57.710079       1 egressgw.go:162] External gateway pod: pod-serving-1-1-serving-job, detected for namespace(s) served-ns-1                                                                                                      
I1007 19:56:57.710119       1 pods.go:307] [serving-ns-1/pod-serving-1-1-serving-job] addLogicalPort took 10.569509ms
E1007 19:56:57.710135       1 ovn.go:685] failed to handle external GW check: unable to unmarshall annotation k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/network-status on pod pod-serving-1-1-serving-job: unexpected end of JSON input                             
I1007 19:56:57.710188       1 ovn.go:631] [0582885e-d4fb-450a-9f28-4bc0e5c09f15/serving-ns-1/pod-serving-1-1-serving-job] setup retry failed; will try again later
I1007 19:56:57.710295       1 event.go:282] Event(v1.ObjectReference{Kind:"Pod", Namespace:"serving-ns-1", Name:"pod-serving-1-1-serving-job", UID:"0582885e-d4fb-450a-9f28-4bc0e5c09f15", APIVersion:"v1", ResourceVersion:"122713976", Field
Path:""}): type: 'Warning' reason: 'ErrorAddingLogicalPort' failed to handle external GW check: unable to unmarshall annotation k8s.v1.cni.cncf.io/network-status on pod pod-serving-1-1-serving-job: unexpected end of JSON input

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
4.7.28

How reproducible:
Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Create a healthy cluster
2. Create ICNI2 SPK pods with right annotation
3. Pods are stuck in ContainerCreating state

Actual results:
Pod creation stuck with error - timed out waiting for OVS flows 

Expected results:
Pod should get created and BFD sessions should get established


Additional info: