On þri, 2006-05-30 at 10:26 +1000, Anthony Ransley wrote: > Can any one explain why the following query > > select f(q) from > ( > select * from times > where '2006-03-01 00:00:00'<=q and q<'2006-03-08 00:00:00' > order by q > ) v; > > never completes, but splitting up the time span into single days does work. > > select f(q) from > ( > select * from times > where '2006-03-01 00:00:00'<=q and q<'2006-03-02 00:00:00' > order by q > ) v; first question: is f() relevant to your problem? I mean do you see the same effect with: select q from ( select * from times where '2006-03-01 00:00:00'<=q and q<'2006-03-08 00:00:00' order by q ) v; or even: select q from times where '2006-03-01 00:00:00'<=q and q<'2006-03-08 00:00:00' order by q if f() is needed to make this happen show us f() if f() is not relevant, show us the simplest cases where you see this. show us EXPLAIN on the query that does not finish, show us EXPLAIN ANALYZE on the queries that do. second question: what indexes exist on the table "times" ? another question: how many rows in the table ? next question: is the table newly ANALYZED? finally: what version of postgresql are you using? whithout more info , it is difficult to guess what your problem is, but possibly you need to increase the statistics target of column "q" gnari