diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 97ac75e095..f4f7fc4464 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -14,6 +14,7 @@
  * Cqlsh counts non-empty lines for "Blank lines" warning (CASSANDRA-7325)
  * Make StreamSession#closeSession() idempotent (CASSANDRA-7262)
  * Fix infinite loop on exception while streaming (CASSANDRA-7330)
+ * Reference sstables before populating key cache (CASSANDRA-7234)
 Merged from 1.2:
  * Check internal addresses for seeds (CASSANDRA-6523)
  * Fix potential / by 0 in HHOM page size calculation (CASSANDRA-7354)
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/compaction/CompactionTask.java b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/compaction/CompactionTask.java
index 10c26db3fa..5ef4aad984 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/compaction/CompactionTask.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/cassandra/db/compaction/CompactionTask.java
@@ -242,7 +242,19 @@ public class CompactionTask extends AbstractCompactionTask
         replaceCompactedSSTables(toCompact, sstables);
         // TODO: this doesn't belong here, it should be part of the reader to load when the tracker is wired up
         for (SSTableReader sstable : sstables)
-            sstable.preheat(cachedKeyMap.get(sstable.descriptor));
+        {
+            if (sstable.acquireReference())
+            {
+                try
+                {
+                    sstable.preheat(cachedKeyMap.get(sstable.descriptor));
+                }
+                finally
+                {
+                    sstable.releaseReference();
+                }
+            }
+        }
 
         // log a bunch of statistics about the result and save to system table compaction_history
         long dTime = TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS.toMillis(System.nanoTime() - start);