We changed two relevant Indexes to CREATE INDEX d01ort ON d01buch(d01ort bpchar_pattern_ops ); CREATE INDEX d01ort2 ON d01buch(d01ort2 bpchar_pattern_ops ); and now the same queries are fast. We're looking through our code for more such LIKE clauses on VCHAR columns. Thanks for all the hints matthias -- Matthias Apitz, ✉ guru@xxxxxxxxxxx, http://www.unixarea.de/ +49-176-38902045 Public GnuPG key: http://www.unixarea.de/key.pub