Fix the Request Node to check connections to external services upon initialization

[MantisClone]

Problem

The Request Node doesn't check its connections to external services upon initialization. This means that the Request Node can start running even if one of the services it depends on is unreachable.

Solution

The Request Node should log an error when it cannot reach an external service upon initialization.

Considerations

The Request Node should still finish initializing because the unreachable service might become reachable at a later point in time.

Context

We had an incident where the IPFS connection wasn't working.