query taking much longer since Postgres 8.4 upgrade

["Davenport, Julie" <JDavenport@xxxxxxxx>]

When I run the following query in Postgres 8.0, it runs in 61,509.372 ms

 

When I run it in Postgres 8.4, it runs in 397,857.472 ms

 

Here is the query:

 

select

course_id AS EXTERNAL_COURSE_KEY,

user_id AS EXTERNAL_PERSON_KEY,

'Student' AS ROLE,

'Y' AS AVAILABLE_IND

from course_user_link

where instructor = false

and course_id in

  (

  select course_id

  from course_control

  where to_char(course_begin_date,'YYYYMMDD') IN ( '20100412','20100510','20100607','20100712','20100830','20100927','20101025','20101122','20101213','20110110','20110207','20110307' )

  and course_delivery LIKE 'O%'

  and course_cross_section IS NULL

  )

and user_id not in (select user_id from instr_as_stutemp)

 

(table instr_as_stutemp has just one column and only 4 rows)

 

What new feature of Postgres 8.4 would be making the query run so much more slowly?  Is there a better way to rewrite the query for 8.4 to make it run faster?

 

Many thanks,

Julie