Scale problem: connecting mininet with 127 or 256 switches locks up the controller

Attaching a mininet with 127 switches (when l2switch components installed) or 255 switches (when l2switch components not installed) causes the controller to locks up. Stats and inventory updates stop. The following exception is observed:

logoutException in thread "FlowCapableInventoryProvider" java.lang.IllegalStateException: Transaction chain has failed
at com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkState(Preconditions.java:149)
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.dom.broker.impl.DOMDataBrokerTransactionChainImpl.checkNotFailed(DOMDataBrokerTransactionChainImpl.java:80)
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.dom.broker.impl.DOMDataBrokerTransactionChainImpl.submit(DOMDataBrokerTransactionChainImpl.java:91)
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.dom.broker.impl.DOMForwardedWriteTransaction.submit(DOMForwardedWriteTransaction.java:142)
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.binding.impl.AbstractWriteTransaction.doSubmit(AbstractWriteTransaction.java:142)
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.binding.impl.BindingDataWriteTransactionImpl.submit(BindingDataWriteTransactionImpl.java:83)
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.sal.binding.impl.BindingTranslatedTransactionChain$1.submit(BindingTranslatedTransactionChain.java:68)
at org.opendaylight.controller.md.inventory.manager.FlowCapableInventoryProvider.run(FlowCapableInventoryProvider.java:124)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

The condition is very repeatable and has been reproduced on multiple systems.

The bug is raised against md-sal, although it's not an md-sal bug. It will likely migrate into one of md-sal clients when more thorough analysis has been done.