diff --git a/agent/http.go b/agent/http.go
index 3e95a9722..8c7b4b22b 100644
--- a/agent/http.go
+++ b/agent/http.go
@@ -417,6 +417,14 @@ func setTranslateAddr(resp http.ResponseWriter, active bool) {
 
 // setIndex is used to set the index response header
 func setIndex(resp http.ResponseWriter, index uint64) {
+	// If we ever return X-Consul-Index of 0 blocking clients will go into a busy
+	// loop and hammer us since ?index=0 will never block. It's always safe to
+	// return index=1 since the very first Raft write is always an internal one
+	// writing the raft config for the cluster so no user-facing blocking query
+	// will ever legitimately have an X-Consul-Index of 1.
+	if index == 0 {
+		index = 1
+	}
 	resp.Header().Set("X-Consul-Index", strconv.FormatUint(index, 10))
 }
 
diff --git a/connect/resolver.go b/connect/resolver.go
index b65bada06..f2e574553 100644
--- a/connect/resolver.go
+++ b/connect/resolver.go
@@ -172,7 +172,7 @@ func (cr *ConsulResolver) resolveServiceEntry(entry *api.ServiceEntry) (string,
 	port := entry.Service.Port
 
 	service := entry.Service.Service
-	if !entry.Service.Connect.Native {
+	if entry.Service.Connect != nil && !entry.Service.Connect.Native {
 		service = entry.Service.ProxyDestination
 	}