Optimsing a Prisma based PostgreSQL query with indexes or DB setttings - postgresql

I'm trying to optimize a pagination query that runs on a table of Videos joined with Channels for a project that uses the Prism ORM.
I don't have a lot of experience adding database indexes to optimize performance and could use some guidance on whether I missed something obvious or I'm simply constrained by the database server hardware.
When extracted, the query that Prisma runs looks like this and takes at least 4-10 seconds to run on 136k videos even after I added some indexes:
SELECT
"public"."Video"."id",
"public"."Video"."youtubeId",
"public"."Video"."channelId",
"public"."Video"."type",
"public"."Video"."status",
"public"."Video"."reviewed",
"public"."Video"."category",
"public"."Video"."youtubeTags",
"public"."Video"."language",
"public"."Video"."title",
"public"."Video"."description",
"public"."Video"."duration",
"public"."Video"."durationSeconds",
"public"."Video"."viewCount",
"public"."Video"."likeCount",
"public"."Video"."commentCount",
"public"."Video"."scheduledStartTime",
"public"."Video"."actualStartTime",
"public"."Video"."actualEndTime",
"public"."Video"."sortTime",
"public"."Video"."createdAt",
"public"."Video"."updatedAt",
"public"."Video"."publishedAt"
FROM
"public"."Video",
(
SELECT
"public"."Video"."sortTime" AS "Video_sortTime_0"
FROM
"public"."Video"
WHERE ("public"."Video"."id") = (29949)
) AS "order_cmp"
WHERE (
("public"."Video"."id") IN(
SELECT
"t0"."id" FROM "public"."Video" AS "t0"
INNER JOIN "public"."Channel" AS "j0" ON ("j0"."id") = ("t0"."channelId")
WHERE (
(NOT "j0"."status" IN('HIDDEN', 'ARCHIVED'))
AND "t0"."id" IS NOT NULL)
)
AND "public"."Video"."status" IN('UPCOMING', 'LIVE', 'PUBLISHED')
AND "public"."Video"."sortTime" <= "order_cmp"."Video_sortTime_0")
ORDER BY
"public"."Video"."sortTime" DESC OFFSET 0;
I haven't yet defined the indexes in my Prisma schema file, I've just been setting them directly on the database. These are the current indexes on the Video and Channel tables:
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX "Video_youtubeId_key" ON public."Video" USING btree ("youtubeId") CREATE INDEX "Video_status_idx" ON public."Video" USING btree (status)
CREATE INDEX "Video_sortTime_idx" ON public."Video" USING btree ("sortTime" DESC)
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX "Video_pkey" ON public."Video" USING btree (id)
CREATE INDEX "Video_channelId_idx" ON public."Video" USING btree ("channelId")
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX "Channel_youtubeId_key" ON public."Channel" USING btree ("youtubeId")
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX "Channel_pkey" ON public."Channel" USING btree (id)
EXPLAIN (ANALYZE,BUFFERS) for the query shows this (analyzer tool link):
Sort (cost=114760.67..114867.67 rows=42801 width=1071) (actual time=4115.144..4170.368 rows=13943 loops=1)
Sort Key: ""Video"".""sortTime"" DESC
Sort Method: external merge Disk: 12552kB
Buffers: shared hit=19049 read=54334 dirtied=168, temp read=1569 written=1573
I/O Timings: read=11229.719
-> Nested Loop (cost=39030.38..91423.62 rows=42801 width=1071) (actual time=2720.873..4037.549 rows=13943 loops=1)
Join Filter: (""Video"".""sortTime"" <= ""Video_1"".""sortTime"")
Rows Removed by Join Filter: 115529
Buffers: shared hit=19049 read=54334 dirtied=168
I/O Timings: read=11229.719
-> Index Scan using ""Video_pkey"" on ""Video"" ""Video_1"" (cost=0.42..8.44 rows=1 width=8) (actual time=0.852..1.642 rows=1 loops=1)
Index Cond: (id = 29949)
Buffers: shared hit=2 read=2
I/O Timings: read=0.809
-> Gather (cost=39029.96..89810.14 rows=128404 width=1071) (actual time=2719.274..4003.170 rows=129472 loops=1)
Workers Planned: 2
Workers Launched: 2
Buffers: shared hit=19047 read=54332 dirtied=168
I/O Timings: read=11228.910
-> Parallel Hash Semi Join (cost=38029.96..75969.74 rows=53502 width=1071) (actual time=2695.849..3959.412 rows=43157 loops=3)
Hash Cond: (""Video"".id = t0.id)
Buffers: shared hit=19047 read=54332 dirtied=168
I/O Timings: read=11228.910
-> Parallel Seq Scan on ""Video"" (cost=0.00..37202.99 rows=53938 width=1071) (actual time=0.929..1236.450 rows=43157 loops=3)
Filter: (status = ANY ('{UPCOMING,LIVE,PUBLISHED}'::""VideoStatus""[]))
Rows Removed by Filter: 3160
Buffers: shared hit=9289 read=27118
I/O Timings: read=3526.407
-> Parallel Hash (cost=37312.18..37312.18 rows=57422 width=4) (actual time=2692.172..2692.180 rows=46084 loops=3)
Buckets: 262144 Batches: 1 Memory Usage: 7520kB
Buffers: shared hit=9664 read=27214 dirtied=168
I/O Timings: read=7702.502
-> Hash Join (cost=173.45..37312.18 rows=57422 width=4) (actual time=3.485..2666.998 rows=46084 loops=3)
Hash Cond: (t0.""channelId"" = j0.id)
Buffers: shared hit=9664 read=27214 dirtied=168
I/O Timings: read=7702.502
-> Parallel Seq Scan on ""Video"" t0 (cost=0.00..36985.90 rows=57890 width=8) (actual time=1.774..2646.207 rows=46318 loops=3)
Filter: (id IS NOT NULL)
Buffers: shared hit=9193 read=27214 dirtied=168
I/O Timings: read=7702.502
-> Hash (cost=164.26..164.26 rows=735 width=4) (actual time=1.132..1.136 rows=735 loops=3)
Buckets: 1024 Batches: 1 Memory Usage: 34kB
Buffers: shared hit=471
-> Seq Scan on ""Channel"" j0 (cost=0.00..164.26 rows=735 width=4) (actual time=0.024..0.890 rows=735 loops=3)
Filter: (status <> ALL ('{HIDDEN,ARCHIVED}'::""ChannelStatus""[]))
Rows Removed by Filter: 6
Buffers: shared hit=471
Planning Time: 8.134 ms
Execution Time: 4173.202 ms
Now a hint from that same tool seems to suggest that it needed to use disk space for sorting, since my work_mem setting was too low (needed 12560kB and on my Lightsail Postgres DB with 1 gig of RAM, it's set to '4M').
I'm a bit nervous about bumping work_mem to something like 16 or even 24M on a whim. Is that too much for my server's total RAM? Does this look like my root problem? Is there anything else I can do with indexes or my query?
If it helps, the actual Prisma query looks like this
const videos = await ctx.prisma.video.findMany({
where: {
channel: {
NOT: {
status: {
in: [ChannelStatus.HIDDEN, ChannelStatus.ARCHIVED],
},
},
},
status: {
in: [VideoStatus.UPCOMING, VideoStatus.LIVE, VideoStatus.PUBLISHED],
},
},
include: {
channel: {
include: {
links: true,
},
},
},
cursor: _args.cursor
? {
id: _args.cursor,
}
: undefined,
skip: _args.cursor ? 1 : 0,
orderBy: {
sortTime: 'desc',
},
take: Math.min(_args.limit, config.GRAPHQL_MAX_RECENT_VIDEOS),
});
Even if I eliminate the join with the Channel table from the Prisma query entirely, the performance doesn't improve by much and a query still takes 7-8 seconds to run.

This query is a bit of an ORM generated nested-select mess. Nested-selects get in the way of the optimizer. Joins are usually better.
If written by hand, the query would be something like this.
select *
from video
join channel on channel.id = video.channelId
where video.status in('UPCOMING', 'LIVE', 'PUBLISHED')
-- Not clear what this is for, might be wacky pagination?
and video.sortTime <= (
select sortTime from video where id = 29949
)
and not channel.status in('HIDDEN', 'ARCHIVED')
order by sortTime desc
offset 0
limit 100
Pretty straight-forward. Much easier to understand and optimize.
Same as below, this query would benefit from a single composite index on sortTime, status.
And since you're paginating, using limit to only get as many rows as you need in a page can drastically help with performance. Otherwise Postgres will do all the work to calculate all rows.
The performance is getting killed by multiple sequential scans of video.
-> Parallel Seq Scan on ""Video"" (cost=0.00..37202.99 rows=53938 width=1071) (actual time=0.929..1236.450 rows=43157 loops=3)
Filter: (status = ANY ('{UPCOMING,LIVE,PUBLISHED}'::""VideoStatus""[]))
Rows Removed by Filter: 3160
Buffers: shared hit=9289 read=27118
I/O Timings: read=3526.407
-> Parallel Seq Scan on ""Video"" t0 (cost=0.00..36985.90 rows=57890 width=8) (actual time=1.774..2646.207 rows=46318 loops=3)
Filter: (id IS NOT NULL)
Buffers: shared hit=9193 read=27214 dirtied=168
I/O Timings: read=7702.502
Looking at the where clause...
WHERE (
("public"."Video"."id") IN(
SELECT
"t0"."id" FROM "public"."Video" AS "t0"
INNER JOIN "public"."Channel" AS "j0" ON ("j0"."id") = ("t0"."channelId")
WHERE (
(NOT "j0"."status" IN('HIDDEN', 'ARCHIVED'))
AND "t0"."id" IS NOT NULL)
)
AND "public"."Video"."status" IN('UPCOMING', 'LIVE', 'PUBLISHED')
AND "public"."Video"."sortTime" <= "order_cmp"."Video_sortTime_0")
But you have indexes on video.id and video.status. Why is it doing a seq scan?
In general, Postgres will only use one index per query. Your query needs to check three columns: id, status, and sortTime. Postgres can only use one index, so it uses the one on sortTime and has to seq scan for the rest.
To solve this, try creating a single composite index on both sortTime and status. This will allow Postgres to use an index for both the status and sortTime parts of the query.
create index video_sortTime_status_idx on video (sortTime, status)
With this index the separate sortTime index is no longer necessary, drop it.
The second seq scan is from "t0"."id" IS NOT NULL. "t0" is the Video table. "id" is its primary key. It should be impossible for a primary key to be null, so remove that.

I don't think any index or db setting is going to improve your existing query by much.
Two small changes to the existing query does get it to use the "sortTime" index for ordering, but I don't know if you can influence Prisma to make the changes. One is to add the explicit LIMIT (although I don't know if that is necessary, I don't know how to test it with the "take" method instead of the LIMIT method), and the other is to move the 29949 subquery out of the join and put it directly into the WHERE.
AND "public"."Video"."sortTime" <= (
SELECT
"public"."Video"."sortTime" AS "Video_sortTime_0"
FROM
"public"."Video"
WHERE ("public"."Video"."id") = (29949)
)
But if Prisma allows you to inject custom queries, I would just rewrite it from scratch along the lines Schwern has suggested.
An improvement in the PostgreSQL planner might get it to work without moving the subquery, but even if we knew exactly what to change and had a high-quality implementation of it and could convince people it was a trade-off free improvement, it would still not be released for over a year (in v16), so it wouldn't help you immediately and I wouldn't have much hope for getting it accepted anyway.

Related

PostgreSQL - ORDER BY with LIMIT not using indexes as expected

We have two tables - event_deltas and deltas_to_retrieve - which both have BTREE indexes on the same two columns:
CREATE TABLE event_deltas
(
event_id UUID REFERENCES events(id) NOT NULL,
version INT NOT NULL,
json_patch JSONB NOT NULL,
PRIMARY KEY (event_id, version)
);
CREATE TABLE deltas_to_retrieve(event_id UUID NOT NULL, version INT NOT NULL);
CREATE UNIQUE INDEX event_id_version ON deltas_to_retrieve (event_id, version);
In terms of table size, deltas_to_retrieve is a tiny lookup table of ~500 rows. The event_deltas table contains ~7,000,000 rows. Due to the size of the latter table, we want to limit how much we retrieve at once. Therefore, the tables are queried as follows:
SELECT ed.event_id, ed.version
FROM deltas_to_retrieve zz, event_deltas ed
WHERE zz.event_id = ed.event_id
AND ed.version > zz.version
ORDER BY ed.event_id, ed.version
LIMIT 5000;
Without the LIMIT, for the example I'm looking at the query returns ~30,000 rows.
What's odd about this query is the impact of the ORDER BY. Due to the existing indexes, the data comes back in the order we want with or without it. I would rather keep the explicit ORDER BY there so we're future-proofed against future changes, as well as for readability etc. However, as things stand it has a significant negative impact on performance.
According to the docs:
An important special case is ORDER BY in combination with LIMIT n: an explicit sort will have to process all the data to identify the first n rows, but if there is an index matching the ORDER BY, the first n rows can be retrieved directly, without scanning the remainder at all.
This makes me think that, given the indexes we already have in place, the ORDER BY should not slow down the query at all. However, in practice I'm seeing execution times of ~10s with the ORDER BY and <1s without. I've included the plans outputted by EXPLAIN below:
Without ORDER BY
Just EXPLAIN:
QUERY PLAN
Limit (cost=0.56..20033.38 rows=5000 width=20)
-> Nested Loop (cost=0.56..331980.39 rows=82859 width=20)
-> Seq Scan on deltas_to_retrieve zz (cost=0.00..9.37 rows=537 width=20)
-> Index Only Scan using event_deltas_pkey on event_deltas ed (cost=0.56..616.66 rows=154 width=20)
Index Cond: ((event_id = zz.event_id) AND (version > zz.version))
More detailed EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS):
QUERY PLAN
Limit (cost=0.56..20039.35 rows=5000 width=20) (actual time=3.675..2083.063 rows=5000 loops=1)
" Buffers: shared hit=1450 read=4783, local hit=2"
-> Nested Loop (cost=0.56..1055082.88 rows=263260 width=20) (actual time=3.673..2080.745 rows=5000 loops=1)
" Buffers: shared hit=1450 read=4783, local hit=2"
-> Seq Scan on deltas_to_retrieve zz (cost=0.00..27.00 rows=1700 width=20) (actual time=0.022..0.307 rows=241 loops=1)
Buffers: local hit=2
-> Index Only Scan using event_deltas_pkey on event_deltas ed (cost=0.56..619.07 rows=155 width=20) (actual time=1.317..8.612 rows=21 loops=241)
Index Cond: ((event_id = zz.event_id) AND (version > zz.version))
Heap Fetches: 5000
Buffers: shared hit=1450 read=4783
Planning Time: 1.150 ms
Execution Time: 2084.647 ms
With ORDER BY
Just EXPLAIN:
QUERY PLAN
Limit (cost=0.84..929199.06 rows=5000 width=20)
-> Merge Join (cost=0.84..48924145.53 rows=263260 width=20)
Merge Cond: (ed.event_id = zz.event_id)
Join Filter: (ed.version > zz.version)
-> Index Only Scan using event_deltas_pkey on event_deltas ed (cost=0.56..48873353.76 rows=12318733 width=20)
-> Materialize (cost=0.28..6178.03 rows=1700 width=20)
-> Index Only Scan using event_id_version on deltas_to_retrieve zz (cost=0.28..6173.78 rows=1700 width=20)
More detailed EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS):
QUERY PLAN
Limit (cost=0.84..929199.06 rows=5000 width=20) (actual time=4457.770..506706.443 rows=5000 loops=1)
" Buffers: shared hit=78806 read=1071004 dirtied=148, local hit=63"
-> Merge Join (cost=0.84..48924145.53 rows=263260 width=20) (actual time=4457.768..506704.815 rows=5000 loops=1)
Merge Cond: (ed.event_id = zz.event_id)
Join Filter: (ed.version > zz.version)
" Buffers: shared hit=78806 read=1071004 dirtied=148, local hit=63"
-> Index Only Scan using event_deltas_pkey on event_deltas ed (cost=0.56..48873353.76 rows=12318733 width=20) (actual time=4.566..505443.407 rows=1813438 loops=1)
Heap Fetches: 1814767
Buffers: shared hit=78806 read=1071004 dirtied=148
-> Materialize (cost=0.28..6178.03 rows=1700 width=20) (actual time=0.063..2.524 rows=5000 loops=1)
Buffers: local hit=63
-> Index Only Scan using event_id_version on deltas_to_retrieve zz (cost=0.28..6173.78 rows=1700 width=20) (actual time=0.056..0.663 rows=78 loops=1)
Heap Fetches: 78
Buffers: local hit=63
Planning Time: 1.088 ms
Execution Time: 506709.819 ms
I'm not very experienced at reading these plans, but it's obviously thinking that it needs to retrieve everything, sort it and then return TOP N, rather than just grabbing the first N using the index. It's doing a Seq Scan on the smaller deltas_to_retrieve table rather than an Index Only Scan - is that the problem? That table is v. small (~500 rows), so I wonder if it's just not bothering to use the index because of that?
Postgres version: 11.12
Upgrading to Postgres 13 fixed this for us, with the introduction of incremental sort. From some docs on the feature:
Incremental sorting: Sorting is a performance-intensive task, so every improvement in this area can make a difference. Now PostgreSQL 13 introduces incremental sorting, which leverages early-stage sorts of a query and sorts only the incremental unsorted fields, increasing the chances the sorted block will fit in memory and by that, improving performance.
The new query plan from EXPLAIN is as follows, with the query now completing in <500ms consistently:
QUERY PLAN
Limit (cost=71.06..820.32 rows=5000 width=20)
-> Incremental Sort (cost=71.06..15461.82 rows=102706 width=20)
" Sort Key: ed.event_id, ed.version"
Presorted Key: ed.event_id
-> Nested Loop (cost=0.84..6659.05 rows=102706 width=20)
-> Index Only Scan using event_id_version on deltas_to_retrieve zz (cost=0.28..1116.39 rows=541 width=20)
-> Index Only Scan using event_deltas_pkey on event_deltas ed (cost=0.56..8.35 rows=190 width=20)
Index Cond: ((event_id = zz.event_id) AND (version > zz.version))
Note:
[Start by running VACUUM ANALYZE on both tables]
since deltas_to_retrieve only needs to contain the lowest versions, it could be unique on event_id
you can simplify the query to:
SELECT event_id, version
FROM event_deltas ed
WHERE EXISTS (
SELECT * FROM deltas_to_retrieve zz
WHERE zz.event_id = ed.event_id
AND zz.version < ed.version
)
ORDER BY event_id, version
LIMIT 5000;

Improve PostgreSQL query response

I have one table that includes about 100K rows and their growth and growth.
My query response has a bad response time and it affects my front-end user experience.
I want to ask for your help to improve my response time from the DB.
Today the PostgreSQL runs on my local machine, Macbook pro 13 2019 16 RAM and I5 Core.
I the future I will load this DB on a docker and run it on a Better server.
What can I do to improve it for now?
Table Structure:
CREATE TABLE dots
(
dot_id INT,
site_id INT,
latitude float ( 6 ),
longitude float ( 6 ),
rsrp float ( 6 ),
dist INT,
project_id INT,
dist_from_site INT,
geom geometry,
dist_from_ref INT,
file_name VARCHAR
);
The dot_id resets after inserting the bulk of data and each for "file_name" column.
Table Dots:
The queries:
Query #1:
await db.query(
`select MAX(rsrp) FROM dots where site_id=$1 and ${table}=$2 and project_id = $3 and file_name ilike $4`,
[site_id, dist, project_id, filename]
);
Time for response: 200ms
QUERY PLAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finalize Aggregate (cost=37159.88..37159.89 rows=1 width=4) (actual time=198.416..201.762 rows=1 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=16165 read=16031
-> Gather (cost=37159.66..37159.87 rows=2 width=4) (actual time=198.299..201.752 rows=3 loops=1)
Workers Planned: 2
Workers Launched: 2
Buffers: shared hit=16165 read=16031
-> Partial Aggregate (cost=36159.66..36159.67 rows=1 width=4) (actual time=179.009..179.010 rows=1 loops=3)
Buffers: shared hit=16165 read=16031
-> Parallel Seq Scan on dots (cost=0.00..36150.01 rows=3861 width=4) (actual time=122.889..178.817 rows=1088 loops=3)
Filter: (((file_name)::text ~~* 'BigFile'::text) AND (site_id = 42047) AND (dist_from_ref = 500) AND (project_id = 1))
Rows Removed by Filter: 157073
Buffers: shared hit=16165 read=16031
Planning Time: 0.290 ms
Execution Time: 201.879 ms
(14 rows)
Query #2:
await db.query(
`SELECT DISTINCT (${table}) FROM dots where site_id=$1 and project_id = $2 and file_name ilike $3 order by ${table}`,
[site_id, project_id, filename]
);
Time for response: 1100ms
QUERY PLAN
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sort (cost=41322.12..41322.31 rows=77 width=4) (actual time=1176.071..1176.077 rows=66 loops=1)
Sort Key: dist_from_ref
Sort Method: quicksort Memory: 28kB
Buffers: shared hit=16175 read=16021
-> HashAggregate (cost=41318.94..41319.71 rows=77 width=4) (actual time=1176.024..1176.042 rows=66 loops=1)
Group Key: dist_from_ref
Batches: 1 Memory Usage: 24kB
Buffers: shared hit=16175 read=16021
-> Seq Scan on dots (cost=0.00..40499.42 rows=327807 width=4) (actual time=0.423..1066.316 rows=326668 loops=1)
Filter: (((file_name)::text ~~* 'BigFile'::text) AND (site_id = 42047) AND (project_id = 1))
Rows Removed by Filter: 147813
Buffers: shared hit=16175 read=16021
Planning:
Buffers: shared hit=5 dirtied=1
Planning Time: 0.242 ms
Execution Time: 1176.125 ms
(16 rows)
Query #3:
await db.query(
`SELECT count(*) FROM dots WHERE site_id = $1 AND ${table} = $2 and project_id = $3 and file_name ilike $4`,
[site_id, dist, project_id, filename]
);
Time for response: 200ms
QUERY PLAN
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finalize Aggregate (cost=37159.88..37159.89 rows=1 width=8) (actual time=198.725..202.335 rows=1 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=16160 read=16036
-> Gather (cost=37159.66..37159.87 rows=2 width=8) (actual time=198.613..202.328 rows=3 loops=1)
Workers Planned: 2
Workers Launched: 2
Buffers: shared hit=16160 read=16036
-> Partial Aggregate (cost=36159.66..36159.67 rows=1 width=8) (actual time=179.182..179.183 rows=1 loops=3)
Buffers: shared hit=16160 read=16036
-> Parallel Seq Scan on dots (cost=0.00..36150.01 rows=3861 width=0) (actual time=119.340..179.020 rows=1088 loops=3)
Filter: (((file_name)::text ~~* 'BigFile'::text) AND (site_id = 42047) AND (dist_from_ref = 500) AND (project_id = 1))
Rows Removed by Filter: 157073
Buffers: shared hit=16160 read=16036
Planning Time: 0.109 ms
Execution Time: 202.377 ms
(14 rows)
Tables do no have any indexes.
I added an index and it helped a bit... create index idx1 on dots (site_id, project_id, file_name, dist_from_site,dist_from_ref)
OK, that's a bit too much.
An index on columns (a,b) is useful for "where a=..." and also for "where a=... and b=..." but it is not really useful for "where b=...". Creating an index with many columns uses more disk space and is slower than with fewer columns, which is a waste if the extra columns in the index don't make your queries faster. Both dist_ columns in the index will probably not be used.
Indices are a compromise : if your table has small rows, like two integer columns, and you create an index on these two columns, then it will be as big as the table, so you better be sure you need it. But in your case, your rows are pretty large at around 5kB and the number of rows is small, so adding an index or several on small int columns costs very little overhead.
So, since you very often use WHERE conditions on both site_id and project_id you can create an index on site_id,project_id. This will also work for a WHERE condition on site_id alone. If you sometimes use project_id alone, you can swap the order of the columns so it appears first, or even create another index.
You say the cardinality of these columns is about 30, so selecting on one value of site_id or project_id should hit 1/30 or 3.3% of the table, and selecting on both columns should hit 0.1% of the table, if they are uncorrelated and evenly distributed. This should already result in a substantial speedup.
You could also add an index on dist_from_site, and another one on dist_on_ref, if they have good selectivity (ie, high cardinality in those columns). Postgres can combine indices with bitmap index scan. But, if say 50% of the rows in the table have the same value for dist_from_site, then an index will be useless for this value, due to not having enough selectivity.
You could also replace the previous 2-column index with 2 indices on site_id,project_id,dist_from_site and site_id,project_id,dist_from_ref. You can try it, see if it is worth the extra resources.
Also there's the filename column and ILIKE. ILIKE can't use an index, which means it's slow. One solution is to use an expression index
CREATE INDEX dots_filename ON dots( lower(file_name) );
and replace your where condition with:
lower(file_name) like lower($4)
This will use the index unless the parameter $4 starts with a "%". And if you never use the LIKE '%' wildcards, and you're just using ILIKE for case-insensitive comparison, then you can replace LIKE with the = operator. Basically lower(a) = lower(b) is a case-insensitive comparison.
Likewise you could replace the previous 2-column index with an index on site_id,project_id,lower(filename) if you often use these three together in the WHERE condition. But as said above, it won't optimize searches on filename alone.
Since your rows are huge, even adding 1 kB of index per row will only add 20% overhead to your table, so you can overdo it without too much trouble. So go ahead and experiment, you'll see what works best.

PostgreSQL slow order

I have table (over 100 millions records) on PostgreSQL 13.1
CREATE TABLE report
(
id serial primary key,
license_plate_id integer,
datetime timestamp
);
Indexes (for test I create both of them):
create index report_lp_datetime_index on report (license_plate_id, datetime);
create index report_lp_datetime_desc_index on report (license_plate_id desc, datetime desc);
So, my question is why query like
select * from report r
where r.license_plate_id in (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75)
order by datetime desc
limit 100
Is very slow (~10sec). But query without order statement is fast (milliseconds).
Explain:
explain (analyze, buffers, format text) select * from report r
where r.license_plate_id in (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34, 75,374,57123)
limit 100
Limit (cost=0.57..400.38 rows=100 width=316) (actual time=0.037..0.216 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=103
-> Index Scan using report_lp_id_idx on report r (cost=0.57..44986.97 rows=11252 width=316) (actual time=0.035..0.202 rows=100 loops=1)
Index Cond: (license_plate_id = ANY ('{1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75,374,57123}'::integer[]))
Buffers: shared hit=103
Planning Time: 0.228 ms
Execution Time: 0.251 ms
explain (analyze, buffers, format text) select * from report r
where r.license_plate_id in (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75,374,57123)
order by datetime desc
limit 100
Limit (cost=44193.63..44193.88 rows=100 width=316) (actual time=4921.030..4921.047 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=11455 read=671
-> Sort (cost=44193.63..44221.76 rows=11252 width=316) (actual time=4921.028..4921.035 rows=100 loops=1)
Sort Key: datetime DESC
Sort Method: top-N heapsort Memory: 128kB
Buffers: shared hit=11455 read=671
-> Bitmap Heap Scan on report r (cost=151.18..43763.59 rows=11252 width=316) (actual time=54.422..4911.927 rows=12148 loops=1)
Recheck Cond: (license_plate_id = ANY ('{1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75,374,57123}'::integer[]))
Heap Blocks: exact=12063
Buffers: shared hit=11455 read=671
-> Bitmap Index Scan on report_lp_id_idx (cost=0.00..148.37 rows=11252 width=0) (actual time=52.631..52.632 rows=12148 loops=1)
Index Cond: (license_plate_id = ANY ('{1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75,374,57123}'::integer[]))
Buffers: shared hit=59 read=4
Planning Time: 0.427 ms
Execution Time: 4921.128 ms
You seem to have rather slow storage, if reading 671 8kB-blocks from disk takes a couple of seconds.
The way to speed this up is to reorder the table in the same way as the index, so that you can find the required rows in the same or adjacent table blocks:
CLUSTER report_lp_id_idx USING report_lp_id_idx;
Be warned that rewriting the table in this way causes downtime – the table will not be available while it is being rewritten. Moreover, PostgreSQL does not maintain the table order, so subsequent data modifications will cause performance to gradually deteriorate, so that after a while you will have to run CLUSTER again.
But if you need this query to be fast no matter what, CLUSTER is the way to go.
Your two indices do exactly the same thing, so you can remove the second one, it's useless.
To optimize your query, the order of the fields inside the index must be reversed:
create index report_lp_datetime_index on report (datetime,license_plate_id);
BEGIN;
CREATE TABLE foo (d INTEGER, i INTEGER);
INSERT INTO foo SELECT random()*100000, random()*1000 FROM generate_series(1,1000000) s;
CREATE INDEX foo_d_i ON foo(d DESC,i);
COMMIT;
VACUUM ANALYZE foo;
EXPLAIN ANALYZE SELECT * FROM foo WHERE i IN (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75) ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100;
Limit (cost=0.42..343.92 rows=100 width=8) (actual time=0.076..9.359 rows=100 loops=1)
-> Index Only Scan Backward using foo_d_i on foo (cost=0.42..40976.43 rows=11929 width=8) (actual time=0.075..9.339 rows=100 loops=1)
Filter: (i = ANY ('{1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75}'::integer[]))
Rows Removed by Filter: 9016
Heap Fetches: 0
Planning Time: 0.339 ms
Execution Time: 9.387 ms
Note the index is not used to optimize the WHERE clause. It is used here as a compact and fast way to store references to the rows ordered by date DESC, so the ORDER BY can do an index-only scan and avoid sorting. By adding column id to the index, an index-only scan can be performed to test the condition on id, without hitting the table for every row. Since there is a low LIMIT value it does not need to scan the whole index, it only scans it in date DESC order until it finds enough rows satisfying the WHERE condition to return the result.
It will be faster if you create the index in date DESC order, this could be useful if you use ORDER BY date DESC + LIMIT in other queries too.
You forget that OP's table has a third column, and he is using SELECT *. So that wouldn't be an index-only scan.
Easy to work around. The optimum way to do this query would be an index-only scan to filter on WHERE conditions, then LIMIT, then hit the table to get the rows. For some reason if "select *" is used postgres takes the id column from the table instead of taking it from the index, which results in lots of unnecessary heap fetches for rows whose id is rejected by the WHERE condition.
Easy to work around, by doing it manually. I've also added another bogus column to make sure the SELECT * hits the table.
EXPLAIN (ANALYZE,buffers) SELECT * FROM foo
JOIN (SELECT d,i FROM foo WHERE i IN (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75) ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100) f USING (d,i)
ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100;
Limit (cost=0.85..1281.94 rows=1 width=17) (actual time=0.052..3.618 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=453
-> Nested Loop (cost=0.85..1281.94 rows=1 width=17) (actual time=0.050..3.594 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=453
-> Limit (cost=0.42..435.44 rows=100 width=8) (actual time=0.037..2.953 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=53
-> Index Only Scan using foo_d_i on foo foo_1 (cost=0.42..51936.43 rows=11939 width=8) (actual time=0.037..2.935 rows=100 loops=1)
Filter: (i = ANY ('{1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75}'::integer[]))
Rows Removed by Filter: 9010
Heap Fetches: 0
Buffers: shared hit=53
-> Index Scan using foo_d_i on foo (cost=0.42..8.45 rows=1 width=17) (actual time=0.005..0.005 rows=1 loops=100)
Index Cond: ((d = foo_1.d) AND (i = foo_1.i))
Buffers: shared hit=400
Execution Time: 3.663 ms
Another option is to just add the primary key to the date,license_plate index.
SELECT * FROM foo JOIN (SELECT id FROM foo WHERE i IN (1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75) ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100) f USING (id) ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100;
Limit (cost=1357.98..1358.23 rows=100 width=17) (actual time=3.920..3.947 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=473
-> Sort (cost=1357.98..1358.23 rows=100 width=17) (actual time=3.919..3.931 rows=100 loops=1)
Sort Key: foo.d DESC
Sort Method: quicksort Memory: 32kB
Buffers: shared hit=473
-> Nested Loop (cost=0.85..1354.66 rows=100 width=17) (actual time=0.055..3.858 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=473
-> Limit (cost=0.42..509.41 rows=100 width=8) (actual time=0.039..3.116 rows=100 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=73
-> Index Only Scan using foo_d_i_id on foo foo_1 (cost=0.42..60768.43 rows=11939 width=8) (actual time=0.039..3.093 rows=100 loops=1)
Filter: (i = ANY ('{1,2,4,5,6,7,8,10,15,22,34,75}'::integer[]))
Rows Removed by Filter: 9010
Heap Fetches: 0
Buffers: shared hit=73
-> Index Scan using foo_pkey on foo (cost=0.42..8.44 rows=1 width=17) (actual time=0.006..0.006 rows=1 loops=100)
Index Cond: (id = foo_1.id)
Buffers: shared hit=400
Execution Time: 3.972 ms
Edit
After thinking about it... since the LIMIT restricts the output to 100 rows ordered by date desc, wouldn't it be nice if we could get the 100 most recent rows for each license_plate_id, put all that into a top-n sort, and only keep the best 100 for all license_plate_ids? That would avoid reading and throwing away a lot of rows from the index. Even if that's much faster than hitting the table, it will still load up these index pages in RAM and clog up your buffers with stuff you don't actually need to keep in cache. Let's use LATERAL JOIN:
EXPLAIN (ANALYZE,BUFFERS)
SELECT * FROM foo
JOIN (SELECT d,i FROM
(VALUES (1),(2),(4),(5),(6),(7),(8),(10),(15),(22),(34),(75)) idlist
CROSS JOIN LATERAL
(SELECT d,i FROM foo WHERE i=idlist.column1 ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100) f2
ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100
) f3 USING (d,i)
ORDER BY d DESC LIMIT 100;
It's even faster: 2ms, and it uses the index on (license_plate_id,date) instead of the other way around. Also, and this is important, since each subquery in the lateral hits only the index pages that contain rows that will actually be selected, while the previous queries hit much more index pages. So you save on RAM buffers.
If you don't need the index on (date,license_plate_id) and don't want to keep a useless index, that could be interesting since this query doesn't use it. On the other hand, if you need the index on (date,license_plate_id) for something else and want to keep it, then... maybe not.
Please post results for the winning query 🔥

Postgres uses Hash Join with Seq Scan when Inner Select Index Cond is faster

Postgres is using a much heavier Seq Scan on table tracking when an index is available. The first query was the original attempt, which uses a Seq Scan and therefore has a slow query. I attempted to force an Index Scan with an Inner Select, but postgres converted it back to effectively the same query with nearly the same runtime. I finally copied the list from the Inner Select of query two to make the third query. Finally postgres used the Index Scan, which dramatically decreased the runtime. The third query is not viable in a production environment. What will cause postgres to use the last query plan?
(vacuum was used on both tables)
Tables
tracking (worker_id, localdatetime) total records: 118664105
project_worker (id, project_id) total records: 12935
INDEX
CREATE INDEX tracking_worker_id_localdatetime_idx ON public.tracking USING btree (worker_id, localdatetime)
Queries
SELECT worker_id, localdatetime FROM tracking t JOIN project_worker pw ON t.worker_id = pw.id WHERE project_id = 68475018
Hash Join (cost=29185.80..2638162.26 rows=19294218 width=16) (actual time=16.912..18376.032 rows=177681 loops=1)
Hash Cond: (t.worker_id = pw.id)
-> Seq Scan on tracking t (cost=0.00..2297293.86 rows=118716186 width=16) (actual time=0.004..8242.891 rows=118674660 loops=1)
-> Hash (cost=29134.80..29134.80 rows=4080 width=8) (actual time=16.855..16.855 rows=2102 loops=1)
Buckets: 4096 Batches: 1 Memory Usage: 115kB
-> Seq Scan on project_worker pw (cost=0.00..29134.80 rows=4080 width=8) (actual time=0.004..16.596 rows=2102 loops=1)
Filter: (project_id = 68475018)
Rows Removed by Filter: 10833
Planning Time: 0.192 ms
Execution Time: 18382.698 ms
SELECT worker_id, localdatetime FROM tracking t WHERE worker_id IN (SELECT id FROM project_worker WHERE project_id = 68475018 LIMIT 500)
Hash Semi Join (cost=6905.32..2923969.14 rows=27733254 width=24) (actual time=19.715..20191.517 rows=20530 loops=1)
Hash Cond: (t.worker_id = project_worker.id)
-> Seq Scan on tracking t (cost=0.00..2296948.27 rows=118698327 width=24) (actual time=0.005..9184.676 rows=118657026 loops=1)
-> Hash (cost=6899.07..6899.07 rows=500 width=8) (actual time=1.103..1.103 rows=500 loops=1)
Buckets: 1024 Batches: 1 Memory Usage: 28kB
-> Limit (cost=0.00..6894.07 rows=500 width=8) (actual time=0.006..1.011 rows=500 loops=1)
-> Seq Scan on project_worker (cost=0.00..28982.65 rows=2102 width=8) (actual time=0.005..0.968 rows=500 loops=1)
Filter: (project_id = 68475018)
Rows Removed by Filter: 4493
Planning Time: 0.224 ms
Execution Time: 20192.421 ms
SELECT worker_id, localdatetime FROM tracking t WHERE worker_id IN (322016383,316007840,...,285702579)
Index Scan using tracking_worker_id_localdatetime_idx on tracking t (cost=0.57..4766798.31 rows=21877360 width=24) (actual time=0.079..29.756 rows=22112 loops=1)
" Index Cond: (worker_id = ANY ('{322016383,316007840,...,285702579}'::bigint[]))"
Planning Time: 1.162 ms
Execution Time: 30.884 ms
... is in place of the 500 id entries used in the query
Same query ran on another set of 500 id's
Index Scan using tracking_worker_id_localdatetime_idx on tracking t (cost=0.57..4776714.91 rows=21900980 width=24) (actual time=0.105..5528.109 rows=117838 loops=1)
" Index Cond: (worker_id = ANY ('{286237712,286237844,...,216724213}'::bigint[]))"
Planning Time: 2.105 ms
Execution Time: 5534.948 ms
The distribution of "worker_id" within "tracking" seems very skewed. For one thing, the number of rows in one of your instances of query 3 returns over 5 times as many rows as the other instance of it. For another, the estimated number of rows is 100 to 1000 times higher than the actual number. This can certainly lead to bad plans (although it is unlikely to be the complete picture).
What is the actual number of distinct values for worker_id within tracking: select count(distinct worker_id) from tracking? What does the planner think this value is: select n_distinct from pg_stats where tablename='tracking' and attname='worker_id'? If those values are far apart and you force the planner to use a more reasonable value with alter table tracking alter column worker_id set (n_distinct = <real value>); analyze tracking; does that change the plans?
If you want to nudge PostgreSQL towards a nested loop join, try the following:
Create an index on tracking that can be used for an index-only scan:
CREATE INDEX ON tracking (worker_id) INCLUDE (localdatetime);
Make sure that tracking is VACUUMed often, so that an index-only scan is effective.
Reduce random_page_cost and increase effective_cache_size so that the optimizer prices index scans lower (but don't use insane values).
Make sure that you have good estimates on project_worker:
ALTER TABLE project_worker ALTER project_id SET STATISTICS 1000;
ANALYZE project_worker;

Are JSONB indexes slower than native indexes?

I have a large table (30M rows) which has ~10 jsonb B-tree indexes.
When I create a query using few conditions, the query is relatively fast.
When I add more conditions, especially one with a sparse jsonb index (e.g. an integer between 0 and 1,000,000), the query speed drops off dramatically.
I am wondering whether jsonb indexes are slower than native indexes? Would I expect a performance boost by switching to native columns rather than JSON?
Table definition:
id integer
type text
data jsonb
company_index ARRAY
exchange_index ARRAY
eligible boolean
Example query:
SELECT id, data, type
FROM collection.bundles
WHERE ( (ARRAY['.X'] && bundles.exchange_index) AND
type IN ('discussion') AND
( ((data->>'sentiment_score')::bigint > 0 AND
(data->'display_tweet'->'stocktwit'->'id') IS NOT NULL) ) AND
( eligible = true ) AND
((data->'display_tweet'->'stocktwit')->>'id')::bigint IS NULL )
ORDER BY id DESC
LIMIT 50
Output:
Limit (cost=0.56..16197.56 rows=50 width=212) (actual time=31900.874..31900.874 rows=0 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=13713180 read=1267819 dirtied=34 written=713
I/O Timings: read=7644.206 write=7.294
-> Index Scan using bundles2_id_desc_idx on bundles (cost=0.56..2401044.17 rows=7412 width=212) (actual time=31900.871..31900.871 rows=0 loops=1)
Filter: (eligible AND ('{.X}'::text[] && exchange_index) AND (type = 'discussion'::text) AND ((((data -> 'display_tweet'::text) -> 'stocktwit'::text) -> 'id'::text) IS NOT NULL) AND (((data ->> 'sentiment_score'::text))::bigint > 0) AND (((((data -> 'display_tweet'::text) -> 'stocktwit'::text) ->> 'id'::text))::bigint IS NULL))
Rows Removed by Filter: 16093269
Buffers: shared hit=13713180 read=1267819 dirtied=34 written=713
I/O Timings: read=7644.206 write=7.294
Planning time: 0.366 ms
Execution time: 31900.909 ms
Note:
There are jsonb B-tree indexes on every jsonb condition used in this query. exchange_index and company_index have GIN indexes.
UPDATE
After Laurenz's changed query:
Limit (cost=150634.15..150634.27 rows=50 width=211) (actual time=15925.828..15925.828 rows=0 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=1137490 read=680349 written=2
I/O Timings: read=2896.702 write=0.038
-> Sort (cost=150634.15..150652.53 rows=7352 width=211) (actual time=15925.827..15925.827 rows=0 loops=1)
Sort Key: bundles.id DESC
Sort Method: quicksort Memory: 25kB
Buffers: shared hit=1137490 read=680349 written=2
I/O Timings: read=2896.702 write=0.038
-> Bitmap Heap Scan on bundles (cost=56666.15..150316.40 rows=7352 width=211) (actual time=15925.816..15925.816 rows=0 loops=1)
Recheck Cond: (('{.X}'::text[] && exchange_index) AND (type = 'discussion'::text))
Filter: (eligible AND ((((data -> 'display_tweet'::text) -> 'stocktwit'::text) -> 'id'::text) IS NOT NULL) AND (((data ->> 'sentiment_score'::text))::bigint > 0) AND (((((data -> 'display_tweet'::text) -> 'stocktwit'::text) ->> 'id'::text))::bigint IS NULL))
Rows Removed by Filter: 273230
Heap Blocks: exact=175975
Buffers: shared hit=1137490 read=680349 written=2
I/O Timings: read=2896.702 write=0.038
-> BitmapAnd (cost=56666.15..56666.15 rows=23817 width=0) (actual time=1895.890..1895.890 rows=0 loops=1)
Buffers: shared hit=37488 read=85559
I/O Timings: read=325.535
-> Bitmap Index Scan on bundles2_exchange_index_ops_idx (cost=0.00..6515.57 rows=863703 width=0) (actual time=218.690..218.690 rows=892669 loops=1)
Index Cond: ('{.X}'::text[] && exchange_index)
Buffers: shared hit=7 read=313
I/O Timings: read=1.458
-> Bitmap Index Scan on bundles_eligible_idx (cost=0.00..23561.74 rows=2476877 width=0) (actual time=436.719..436.719 rows=2569331 loops=1)
Index Cond: (eligible = true)
Buffers: shared hit=37473
-> Bitmap Index Scan on bundles2_type_idx (cost=0.00..26582.83 rows=2706276 width=0) (actual time=1052.267..1052.267 rows=2794517 loops=1)
Index Cond: (type = 'discussion'::text)
Buffers: shared hit=8 read=85246
I/O Timings: read=324.077
Planning time: 0.433 ms
Execution time: 15928.959 ms
All your fancy indexes are not used at all, so the problem is not if they are fast or not.
There are several things at play here:
Seeing the dirtied and the written pages during the index scan, I suspect that there are quite a lot of “dead tuples” in your table. When the index scan visits them and notices they are dead, it “kills” those index entries so that subsequent index scans don't have to repeat that work.
If you repeat the query, you will probably notice that the number of blocks and the execution time becomes less.
You can reduce that problem by running VACUUM on the table or making sure autovacuum processes the table often enough.
Your major problem, however, is that the LIMIT clause tempts PostgreSQL to use the following strategy:
Since you only want 50 result rows in an order for which you have an index, just examine the table rows in index order and discard all rows that do not match the complicated condition until you have 50 results.
Unfortunately it has to scan 16093319 rows until it has found its 50 hits. The rows at the “high id” end of the table don't match the condition. PostgreSQL does not know about that correlation.
The solution is to discourage PostgreSQL from going down that route. The easiest way would be to drop all indexes on id, but given its name that is probably unfeasible.
The other way is to keep PostgreSQL from “seeing” the LIMIT clause when it plans the scan:
SELECT id, data, type
FROM (SELECT id, data, type
FROM collection.bundles
WHERE /* all your complicated conditions */
OFFSET 0) subquery
ORDER BY id DESC
LIMIT 50;
Remark: You didn't show your index definitions, but it sounds to be like you have quite a lot of them, possibly too many. Indexes are expensive, so make sure you define only those that give you a clear benefit.