Hello,
I got my first hint of why this problem occurs when I looked at the statistics. For the column in question, "instrument_ref" the statistics claimed it to be:
The default_statistics_target=500, and analyze has been run.
select * from pg_stats where attname like 'instr%_ref'; -- Result: 40.000
select count(distinct instrumentid_ref) from bigtable -- Result: 33 385 922 (!!)
That is an astonishing difference of almost a 1000X.
I have tried to increase the statistics target to 5000, and it helps, but it reduces the error to 100X. Still crazy high.
As far as I know, increasing default_statistics_target will not help. [1]
I have considered these fixes:
- hardcode the statistics to a particular ratio of the total number of rows
You can hardcode the percentage of distinct values:
ALTER TABLE bigtable ALTER COLUMN instrument_ref SET ( n_distinct=-0.06 ); /* -1 * (33385922 / 500000000) */
[1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/4136ffa0812111823u645b6ec9wdca60b3da4b00499%40mail.gmail.com
----- Pavel Luzanov Postgres Professional: http://www.postgrespro.com The Russian Postgres Company
