I tried also limiting max htlcs pending in lnd.conf to 10 or 20. But the thing is that sometimes your node must be restarted or simply do not respond, and you have HTLC in fly. So practically you can't do anything about those HTLC. You are trying to restart the node as fast you can, not to get expired those HTLC, but still, if you have to compact the db will take some hours.

Then come the question: why those pending HTLC are not waiting more time until you get online? Or how to control these aspects?