Server crashes as soon as player joins [FIXED]

EDIT: FIXED - XP machine generated too many local entities because the chests were full

Original Post:

The issue appears to be related to an XP machine I built back in 14.4 (which worked fine) - but I was just told from another player - as soon as a player ventures close to that area where the XP machine is - the TPS grinds to a halt and server watchdog triggers a crash. I replicated this behavior a dozen times - now joining always triggers a crash on entry to the game.

Getting debug entries:

[14:29:40] [Server thread/WARN]: Something's taking too long! 'root.tick.levels.world minecraft:overworld.tick.entities.regular' took aprox 2170.925652 ms
[14:29:40] [Server thread/WARN]: Something's taking too long! 'root.tick.levels.world minecraft:overworld.tick.entities' took aprox 2174.639242 ms
[14:29:40] [Server thread/WARN]: Something's taking too long! 'root.tick.levels.world minecraft:overworld.tick' took aprox 2177.437664 ms
[14:29:40] [Server thread/WARN]: Something's taking too long! 'root.tick.levels.world minecraft:overworld' took aprox 2177.544049 ms
[14:29:40] [Server thread/WARN]: Something's taking too long! 'root.tick.levels' took aprox 2178.015022 ms
[14:29:40] [Server thread/WARN]: Something's taking too long! 'root.tick' took aprox 2178.477803 ms
[14:29:40] [Server thread/WARN]: Something's taking too long! 'root' took aprox 2180.923276 ms

Is this a bug? How does one go about fixing this?