Slow on first query - postgresql

Question

I'm having troubles when I perform the first query on a table. Subsequent queries are much faster, even if I change the range date to look for. I assume that PostgreSQL implements a caching mechanism that allows the subsequent queries to be much faster. I can try to warmup the cache so the first user request can hit the cache. However, I think I can somehow improve the following query:
SELECT
y.id, y.title, x.visits, x.score
FROM (
SELECT
article_id, visits,
COALESCE(ROUND((visits / NULLIF(hits ,0)::float)::numeric, 4), 0) score
FROM (
SELECT
article_id, SUM(visits) visits, SUM(hits) hits
FROM
article_reports
WHERE
a.site_id = 'XYZ' AND a.date >= '2017-04-13' AND a.date <= '2017-06-28'
GROUP BY
article_id
) q ORDER BY score DESC, visits DESC LIMIT(20)
) x
INNER JOIN
articles y ON x.article_id = y.id
Any ideas on how can I improve this. The following is the result of EXPLAIN:
Nested Loop (cost=84859.76..85028.54 rows=20 width=272) (actual time=12612.596..12612.836 rows=20 loops=1)
-> Limit (cost=84859.34..84859.39 rows=20 width=52) (actual time=12612.502..12612.517 rows=20 loops=1)
-> Sort (cost=84859.34..84880.26 rows=8371 width=52) (actual time=12612.499..12612.503 rows=20 loops=1)
Sort Key: q.score DESC, q.visits DESC
Sort Method: top-N heapsort Memory: 27kB
-> Subquery Scan on q (cost=84218.04..84636.59 rows=8371 width=52) (actual time=12513.168..12602.649 rows=28965 loops=1)
-> HashAggregate (cost=84218.04..84301.75 rows=8371 width=36) (actual time=12513.093..12536.823 rows=28965 loops=1)
Group Key: a.article_id
-> Bitmap Heap Scan on article_reports a (cost=20122.78..77122.91 rows=405436 width=36) (actual time=135.588..11974.774 rows=398242 loops=1)
Recheck Cond: (((site_id)::text = 'XYZ'::text) AND (date >= '2017-04-13'::date) AND (date <= '2017-06-28'::date))
Heap Blocks: exact=36911
-> Bitmap Index Scan on index_article_reports_on_site_id_and_article_id_and_date (cost=0.00..20021.42 rows=405436 width=0) (actual time=125.846..125.846 rows=398479 loops=1)"
Index Cond: (((site_id)::text = 'XYZ'::text) AND (date >= '2017-04-13'::date) AND (date <= '2017-06-28'::date))
-> Index Scan using articles_pkey on articles y (cost=0.42..8.44 rows=1 width=128) (actual time=0.014..0.014 rows=1 loops=20)
Index Cond: (id = q.article_id)
Planning time: 1.443 ms
Execution time: 12613.689 ms
Thanks in advance

Answer 1

There are two levels of "cache" that Postgres uses:
OS file cache
shared buffers.
Important: Postgres directly controls only the second one, and relies on the first one, which is under OS' control.
First thing I would check are these two settings in postgresql.conf:
effective_cache_size – usually I set it to ~3/4 of all RAM available. Notice that it's not a setting that tells Postgres how to allocate memory, it's just "an advice" to Postgres planner telling some estimate of OS file cache size
shared_buffers – usually I set it to 1/4 of RAM size. This is allocation setting.
Also, I'd check other memory-related settings (work_mem, maintenance_work_mem) to understand how much RAM might be consumed, so will my effective_cache_size estimation be correct at most times.
But if you just turned your Postgres on, the first queries will most probably be long because there is no data in OS file cache and in shared buffers. You can check it with advanced EXPLAIN options:
EXPLAIN (ANALYZE, BUFFERS) SELECT ...
-- you will see how many buffers were fetched from disk ("read") or from cache ("hit")
Here you can find good material on using EXPLAIN: http://www.dalibo.org/_media/understanding_explain.pdf
Additionally, there is an extension aiming to solve "cold cache" problem: pg_prewarm https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/pgprewarm.html
Also, working with SSD disks instead of magnetic ones will mean that disk reads will be much faster.
Have fun and well working Postgres :-)

Answer 2

If it is the first query after inserting several rows you must run an
ANALYZE
in all the database or over the involved tables. Try executing it at database level.