beets: Beets uses all available memory during import and then crashes

Problem

Beets program crashes after all memory appears to be consumed. I noticed that as an import continues, my memory usage increases. Once all system memory is consumed, beets crashes (see end of verbose output below). If I allocate more memory, then it only prolongs the crash. Doesn’t seem to be related to specific files. Disabling all plugins seems to prevent the memory consumption and crash from happening.

Running this command in verbose (-vv) mode:

$ beet -vv import -qp /mnt/music/

Led to this problem:

scrub: auto-scrubbing /mnt/downloads/new_music_collection/Avantasia/The Mystery of Time_ A Rock Epic [2013]/10 - The Great Mystery.mp3
scrub: writing new tags after scrub
Sending event: write
Sending event: after_write
scrub: restoring art
scrub: auto-scrubbing /mnt/downloads/new_music_collection/Avantasia/The Mystery of Time_ A Rock Epic [2013]/07 - Invoke the Machine.mp3
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted '/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/04 - Carry Me Over.mp3'
chroma: no match found
scrub: writing new tags after scrub
Sending event: write
Sending event: after_write
scrub: restoring art
Sending event: album_imported
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted '/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/05 - What Kind of Love.mp3'
chroma: no match found
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted '/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/06 - Another Angel Down.mp3'
chroma: no match found
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted '/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/07 - The Toy Master.mp3'
chroma: no match found
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted '/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/08 - Devil in the Belfry.mp3'
chroma: no match found
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted '/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/09 - Cry Just a Little.mp3'
chroma: no match found
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted "/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/10 - I Don't Believe in Your Love.mp3"
chroma: no match found
chroma: chroma: fingerprinted '/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]/11 - Lost in Space.mp3'
chroma: no match found
Looking up: /mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008]
Tagging Avantasia - The Scarecrow
Searching for discovered album ID: f72ea7dc-5316-36ac-9833-2476d88b62e6
Sending event: albuminfo_received
Candidate: Avantasia - The Scarecrow
Success. Distance: 0.00
Album ID match recommendation is Recommendation.strong
ID match.
Sending event: import_task_start

/mnt/music/Avantasia/The Scarecrow [2008] (11 items)
Tagging:
    Avantasia - The Scarecrow
URL:
    http://musicbrainz.org/release/f72ea7dc-5316-36ac-9833-2476d88b62e6
(Similarity: 100.0%) (CD, 2008, BR, Nuclear Blast)
Sending event: import_task_choice
Sending event: import_task_apply
Killed

Setup

• OS: Debian GNU/Linux 9.6 (stretch)
• Python version: Python 2.7.13
• beets version: 1.3.18
• Turning off plugins made problem go away (yes/no): yes

My configuration (output of beet config) is:

## beets config file
## See https://beets.readthedocs.io for more info

directory: /mnt/downloads/new_music_collection
library: ~/.config/beets/library.db
threaded: yes
ui:
    color: yes
    colors:
        text_success: green
        text_warning: yellow
        text_error: red
        text_highlight: red
        text_highlight_minor: lightgray
        action_default: turquoise
        action: blue
import:
    write: yes ## Either yes or no, controlling whether metadata (e.g., ID3) tags are written to files when using beet import. Defaults to yes.
#    copy: no ## Either yes or no, indicating whether to copy files into the library directory when using beet import. Defaults to yes.
#    move: yes ## Either yes or no, indicating whether to move files into the library directory when using beet import. Defaults to no.
    resume: ask ## Controls whether interrupted imports should be resumed.
    log: ~/.config/beets/log.txt
    quiet_fallback: skip
    duplicate_action: skip

match:
    strong_rec_thresh: 0.02

paths:
    default: $albumartist/$album [$year]/$track - $title
    singleton: Non-Album/$artist/$title
    comp: Compilations/$album [$year]/$track - $title
    albumtype:soundtrack: Soundtracks/$album [$year]/$track - $title

plugins:
    chroma
    fromfilename
    scrub
    info
    missing
    duplicates