Cron fails badly when creating thumbnails [#2010462]

So this is a slightly tangled web and perhaps should be in another issue queue (or not at all). But I've chased down a few things and thought it was worth mentioning here in case it could be handled or planned for here.

The problem

A large image file exhausts PHP's memory when attempting to thumbnail the image.

The symptoms

Cron gives a memory exhausted message
/tmp fills up with failed storage-xxxxxx files causing general server issues
Media content list gives a memory exhausted message http://example.com/admin/content/file/thumbnails

The fix

Upgrading and matching file_entity and media modules and running updb meant that I could delete (from the list view) overly large files from the media browser. However storage api was still attempting to thumbnail and move them. Disabling S3 container doesn't help. Deleting the offending row from {storage_file} and {storage_core_bridge} means that cron runs successfully and doesn't litter /tmp

Resolution

Perhaps this is out of scope for this module. Is there a way to handle a failed cron job better? Does Storage API remove queued jobs when files are removed?