Coskan’s Approach to Oracle

January 17, 2011

11.2.0.2 performance stories

Filed under: Bugs, Performance — coskan @ 12:52 pm

As you might remember from the previous post this Saturday we upgraded one of our databases from 11.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2. The performance of this DB was not always stable but it was running fine before the upgrade.

As usual we came on Monday and start post upgrade firefighting. server seems to use more CPU then it was using. When I checked the queries which were on CPU, they were nearly all changed their plans (I have awr option to check the plan changes) and interestingly Oracle suddenly decided not to use unique primary keys but other indexes with skip scan option.

What could be done to understand the problem ?

1- build a test case
2- run the test case with 11.2.0.1 and 11.2.0.2 optimizer_features_enable
3- If the behaviour is different then find the bottom of the problem by digging which optimizer_fix could have caused the problem ?

Building a test case is very easy thanks to Kerry Osborne and his amazingly useful (I have no idea how many times it made my day) build_bind_vars script. Normally building a test case for a sql which has 100 bind variables is a nightmare but with that script its just a second.

Once I build the test case I run the sql with different optimizer_features_enable settings and found out that sql goes back to its previous good plan when we run it with 11.2.0.1 optimizer settings

Since we found out what caused the problem in general, we can either move forward to 3th step to find bottom of the problem or change optimizer_features_enable to 11.2.0.1 system wide. We chose the first option to see if it is our main problem and it gave us stability across the system.

Was this acceptable workaround ? Not for me or for business. We upgraded the database and now why not using the 11.2.0.2 features. We needed to find out what fix actually caused.

To find out the actual problem we have two brilliant view called v$system_fix_control and v$session_fix_control.

Looks like we have 105 options to check

SQL> select optimizer_feature_enable,count(*) from v$system_fix_control group by optimizer_feature_enable order by 1 asc;

OPTIMIZER_FEATURE_ENABLE    COUNT(*)
------------------------- ----------
10.1.0                             3
10.1.0.3                           1
10.1.0.5                           2
10.2.0.1                           7
10.2.0.2                          12
10.2.0.3                          11
10.2.0.4                          73
10.2.0.5                         111
11.1.0.6                          39
11.1.0.7                          19
11.2.0.1                          65
11.2.0.2                         105
8.0.0                             52
8.1.6                              1
8.1.7                              2
9.2.0                              8
9.2.0.8                            3
                                  37

Lets see what they are

SQL>  select * from v$system_fix_control where optimizer_feature_enable='11.2.0.2';

     BUGNO      VALUE SQL_FEATURE                        DESCRIPTION                                                      OPTIMIZER_FEATURE
---------- ---------- ---------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- -----------------
   8602840          1 QKSFM_CBO_8602840                  kkeRangeJoinSel should avoid using collapsed min/max column stat 11.2.0.2
   8725296          1 QKSFM_OR_EXPAND_8725296            try non-driver predicate only if advanced check requested        11.2.0.2
   8628970          1 QKSFM_CBO_8628970                  group  predicates like col op const  of 1 NDV col                11.2.0.2
   6754080          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_6754080          enable expression replacement thru views                         11.2.0.2
   8767442          1 QKSFM_DYNAMIC_SAMPLING_8767442     compute NDV for all columns in a multi-column join key using DS  11.2.0.2
   8760135          1 QKSFM_CBO_8760135                  allow compile-time peeking of CURRENT_DATE / CURRENT_TIMESTAMP   11.2.0.2
   8644935          1 QKSFM_PQ_8644935                   new parallelization of concat                                    11.2.0.2
   8352378          1 QKSFM_CBO_8352378                  Allow virtual columns in OR expansion index access               11.2.0.2
   8685327          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_8685327          Heuristic to enable full index scan used if table & index analyz 11.2.0.2
   8763472          1 QKSFM_PARTITION_8763472            enable parallel nested loop PWJ for ref-part tables              11.2.0.2
   8773324          1 QKSFM_CBO_8773324                  better recognition of index only plans with virtual columns      11.2.0.2
   8813674          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_8813674       relax restriction for non-nullness check                         11.2.0.2
   8629716          1 QKSFM_CBO_8629716                  enable early replacement for virtual columns                     11.2.0.2
   7277732          1 QKSFM_CBO_7277732                  allow skip scan costing for NL with non-join predicate           11.2.0.2
   8692170          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_8692170       do not apply JF if it prevents JPPD                              11.2.0.2
   8900973          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_8900973       relax restriction on inequality join for group-by placement (GBP 11.2.0.2
   8919133          1 QKSFM_CBO_8919133                  correct nested OR costing bug                                    11.2.0.2
   8551880          1 QKSFM_CBO_8551880                  Rewrite decode predicate to join                                 11.2.0.2
   8901237          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_8901237       correct search of state-space for group-by placement (GBP)       11.2.0.2
   6236862          1 QKSFM_FIRST_ROWS_6236862           account for partition-extended names in first rows optimization  11.2.0.2
   8528517          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_8528517       early query edit checks use weak typecheck expression comparison 11.2.0.2
   7215982          1 QKSFM_UNNEST_7215982               unnest subquery embedded inside an expression                    11.2.0.2
   8214022          1 QKSFM_UNNEST_8214022               perform additional CBQT phase for subquery unnesting             11.2.0.2
   8595392          1 QKSFM_CBO_8595392                  reject join predicate pushdown if parallel access path selected  11.2.0.2
   8890233          1 QKSFM_PQ_8890233                   enable pushing bloom filter through NLJ                          11.2.0.2
   8999317          1 QKSFM_UNNEST_8999317               correct cost comparison for the additional phase for JPPD        11.2.0.2
   8986163          1 QKSFM_PQ_8986163                   align partition-wise gby DOP requirements with partition-wise jo 11.2.0.2
   8855396          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_8855396          sanity check for skip scan costing                               11.2.0.2
   8800514         20 QKSFM_JPPD_8800514                 threshold of table count to disable extended JPPD                11.2.0.2
   9007859          1 QKSFM_CBO_9007859                  Context index to be picked on XMLType Columns                    11.2.0.2
   9053879          1 QKSFM_CBO_9053879                  search all query blocks for replacement candidates               11.2.0.2
   6086930          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_6086930          correct skip scan selectivity evaluation for BETWEEN predicate   11.2.0.2
   7641601          1 QKSFM_CARDINALITY_7641601          treat a single value column as having a frequency histogram      11.2.0.2
   9052506          1 QKSFM_UNNEST_9052506               Allow NAAJ for UPDATE and DELETE                                 11.2.0.2
   9047975          1 QKSFM_CBO_9047975                  improve selectivity for truncated character strings              11.2.0.2
   8893626          0 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_8893626          apply index filter selectivity during skip scan costing          11.2.0.2
   9111170          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_9111170       allow subquery to appear on left side when generating inline vie 11.2.0.2
   8971829          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_8971829          set KKEGIXSL for unpartitioned global index                      11.2.0.2
   9125151          1 QKSFM_STATS_9125151                produce more accurate stats for olap when stats has not been run 11.2.0.2
   9106224          1 QKSFM_PQ_9106224                   allow range distribution in create of global partitioned index   11.2.0.2
   9185228          1 QKSFM_UNNEST_9185228               move correlated filters from subquery to outer query             11.2.0.2
   9206747          1 QKSFM_CBO_9206747                  share metadata for virtual columns when making copy              11.2.0.2
   9088510          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_9088510       compress predicate tree before cost-based query transformation   11.2.0.2
   9143856          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_9143856       uncorrelated OR-ed unary predicates are OK for unnesting         11.2.0.2
   8949971          1 QKSFM_STATS_8949971                make stats for leaf level data appear very large in COTs         11.2.0.2
   9148171          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_9148171       allow distinct elim & distinct aggr transform for non-select stm 11.2.0.2
   8706652          1 QKSFM_CBO_8706652                  fix for 7449971 not complete                                     11.2.0.2
   9245114          1 QKSFM_TABLE_ELIM_9245114           eliminate redundant join predicates in join elimination          11.2.0.2
   9011016          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_9011016          use 1/NDV+1/NROWS for col1 LIKE col2 selectivities (index driver 11.2.0.2
   9265681          1 QKSFM_CARDINALITY_9265681          sanity check for derived ndv/cdn for inner join on range         11.2.0.2
   7284269          1 QKSFM_CURSOR_SHARING_7284269       extended cursor sharing for like predicates                      11.2.0.2
   9272549          1 QKSFM_DYNAMIC_SAMPLING_9272549     do not sample columns which have statistics                      11.2.0.2
   8531463          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_8531463          cost cutoff for bitmap OR chains based on best table access cost 11.2.0.2
   9263333          1 QKSFM_CBO_9263333                  generate transitive predicates for virtual column expressions    11.2.0.2
   8896955          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_8896955       interleave TE with ST and JF                                     11.2.0.2
   9041934          1 QKSFM_EXECUTION_9041934            use selected measures for AW LOOP OPTIMIZED looping strategy     11.2.0.2
   9344709          1 QKSFM_PQ_9344709                   disable parallel execution for a qb with a constant false pred   11.2.0.2
   9024933          1 QKSFM_JPPD_9024933                 Do not allow Old JPPD for OJ view with window function           11.2.0.2
   9033718          1 QKSFM_TABLE_EXPANSION_9033718      remove restriction on bind variables for table expansion         11.2.0.2
   9081848          1 QKSFM_CBO_9081848                  don't use fake index stats as extended stats                     11.2.0.2
   5982893          1 QKSFM_SQL_CODE_GENERATOR_5982893   compact row vector of colocated join                             11.2.0.2
   9287401          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_9287401       full outer join to outer join conversion                         11.2.0.2
   8590021          1 QKSFM_CBO_8590021                  using col stats for pred NVL()  const selectivity estimation 11.2.0.2
   9340120          1 QKSFM_CBO_9340120                  derive stats for sys generated UA view selectivity estimation    11.2.0.2
   9355794          1 QKSFM_CBO_9355794                  clear sort merge joins paths noted in apafjo                     11.2.0.2
   9385634          1 QKSFM_EXECUTION_9385634            always return error for null end point expression                11.2.0.2
   9069046          1 QKSFM_CBO_9069046                  amend histogram column tracking for multicolumn stats            11.2.0.2
   9239337          1 QKSFM_CBO_9239337                  eliminate unreferenced subqueries after view merging             11.2.0.2
   9298010          1 QKSFM_PARTITION_9298010            enable pruning for partitioned IOT rowid predicates              11.2.0.2
   8836806          1 QKSFM_CBO_8836806                  push rownum predicate into sortable domain index                 11.2.0.2
   9344055          1 QKSFM_CBO_9344055                  Control the memory used during query optimization                11.2.0.2
   9203723          1 QKSFM_SQL_CODE_GENERATOR_9203723   allow bloom pruning and bloom filtering on the same join         11.2.0.2
   9443476          1 QKSFM_CBO_9443476                  set OPNF2NOSEL bit for auto generated virtual column predicates  11.2.0.2
   9195582          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_9195582          leaf blocks as upper limit for skip scan blocks                  11.2.0.2
   9433490          1 QKSFM_CBO_9433490                  enable VC replacement for nest operator                          11.2.0.2
   9303766          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_9303766          use 1/NDV+1/NROWS for col1 LIKE col2 selectivities (table access 11.2.0.2
   9437283          1 QKSFM_CBO_9437283                  Do not consider NLJ from JPPD when checking for FCP              11.2.0.2
   9116214          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_9116214          index filter ordering                                            11.2.0.2
   9456688          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_9456688          account for to_number/to_char cost after temp conversion         11.2.0.2
   9342979          1 QKSFM_CURSOR_SHARING_9342979       disable cardinality feedback for old JPPD                        11.2.0.2
   9465425          1 QKSFM_CURSOR_SHARING_9465425       correct hint for index join from cardinality feedback            11.2.0.2
   9092442          1 QKSFM_DML_9092442                  equi-partition load                                              11.2.0.2
   4926618          1 QKSFM_EXECUTION_4926618            do not use hash unique for subqueries in update-set expression   11.2.0.2
   8792846          1 QKSFM_STAR_TRANS_8792846           use _optimizer_star_trans_min_ratio even if ST not hinted        11.2.0.2
   9474259          1 QKSFM_CBO_9474259                  use cdn sanity check when unique colgroup on both sides of join  11.2.0.2
   6472966          1 QKSFM_PARTITION_6472966            load and use statistics for hash sub-partitions                  11.2.0.2
   6408301          1 QKSFM_DYNAMIC_SAMPLING_6408301     use recursive idx selectivity for partitioned table as well      11.2.0.2
   8500130          1 QKSFM_EXECUTION_8500130            enable rownum optimization without partition pushup              11.2.0.2
   9584723          1 QKSFM_INDEX_JOIN_9584723           enable functional indexes for index join                         11.2.0.2
   9593680          1 QKSFM_CBO_9593680                  fix typo in cost computation of subquery filters                 11.2.0.2
   9309281          1 QKSFM_JPPD_9309281                 outer join JPPD allowed for function-based index access path     11.2.0.2
   8693158          1 QKSFM_JPPD_8693158                 consider pushing if only shared predicates to push               11.2.0.2
   9381638          1 QKSFM_PQ_9381638                   Treat CP differently from NLJ for parallel optimizations         11.2.0.2
   9383967          1 QKSFM_COMPILATION_9383967          Allow unique (ie. select distinct) pushdown                      11.2.0.2
   7711900          1 QKSFM_CBQT_7711900                 copy query block text position fields in copy service            11.2.0.2
   9218587          1 QKSFM_CARDINALITY_9218587          Don't use column density for selectivity with 1-bucket histogram 11.2.0.2
   9728438          1 QKSFM_CBO_9728438                  don't go parallel if no operations are expensive enough          11.2.0.2
   9577300          1 QKSFM_CBO_9577300                  Improve range join selectivity for predicates with round         11.2.0.2
   9171113          1 QKSFM_CBO_9171113                  consider parallel cost for partition bitmap table access by rowi 11.2.0.2
   8973745          1 QKSFM_SQL_PLAN_MANAGEMENT_8973745  auto-capture only if literal replaced SQL parses recursively     11.2.0.2
   9102474          1 QKSFM_CBO_9102474                  use IO calibrate statistics to estimate time from cost           11.2.0.2
   9243499          1 QKSFM_CBO_9243499                  relax conditions for logical antijoin                            11.2.0.2
   9912503          1 QKSFM_TRANSFORMATION_9912503       Remove having clause subquery at all levels                      11.2.0.2
   9153459          1 QKSFM_TABLE_ELIM_9153459           allow loading of rely constraints for all statement types        11.2.0.2
   9762592          3 QKSFM_PQ_9762592                   fold bloom filter when offload to storage                        1

Lets shoot in the dark

SQL>  select * from v$system_fix_control where optimizer_feature_enable='11.2.0.2' and description like '%skip%';

     BUGNO      VALUE SQL_FEATURE                                                      DESCRIPTION                                                      OPTIMIZER_FEATURE_ENABLE
---------- ---------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------
   7277732          1 QKSFM_CBO_7277732                                                allow skip scan costing for NL with non-join predicate           11.2.0.2
   8855396          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_8855396                                        sanity check for skip scan costing                               11.2.0.2
   6086930          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_6086930                                        correct skip scan selectivity evaluation for BETWEEN predicate   11.2.0.2
   8893626          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_8893626                                        apply index filter selectivity during skip scan costing          11.2.0.2
   9195582          1 QKSFM_ACCESS_PATH_9195582                                        leaf blocks as upper limit for skip scan blocks                  11.2.0.2

Lets focus on those fixes

In the stack below test4.sql has got the sql causing problem and what I do is altering the session to disable the fix in question and keep it disabled while my current session is under 11.2.0.2 . (For data security I could not add the sql and table names. )

SQL> alter session set optimizer_features_enable='11.2.0.2';

Session altered.

SQL> alter session set "_fix_control"='8855396:OFF';

Session altered.

SQL> @test4.sql

Plan hash value: 2840796242

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                     | Name                        | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT              |                             |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:01.09 |    5404 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS OUTER           |                             |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:01.09 |    5404 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                |                             |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:01.09 |    5404 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX        |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:01.09 |    5404 |
|*  4 |     INDEX SKIP SCAN           | IDX_TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX_02 |      1 |      1 |     50 |00:00:00.07 |    5317 |
|   5 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TABLE_YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY    |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|*  6 |     INDEX UNIQUE SCAN         | PK_ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ      |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   7 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT          |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|*  8 |    INDEX UNIQUE SCAN          | PK_TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT       |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

48 rows selected.

SQL>
SQL> alter session set "_fix_control"='6086930:OFF';

Session altered.

SQL> @test4.sql

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Plan hash value: 2840796242

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                     | Name                        | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT              |                             |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:01.11 |    5404 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS OUTER           |                             |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:01.11 |    5404 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                |                             |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:01.11 |    5404 |
|*  3 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX        |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:01.11 |    5404 |
|*  4 |     INDEX SKIP SCAN           | IDX_TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX_02 |      1 |      1 |     50 |00:00:00.07 |    5317 |
|   5 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TABLE_YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY    |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|*  6 |     INDEX UNIQUE SCAN         | PK_ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ      |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   7 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT          |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|*  8 |    INDEX UNIQUE SCAN          | PK_TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT       |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SQL>
SQL> alter session set "_fix_control"='8893626:OFF';

Session altered.

SQL> @test4.sql

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Plan hash value: 3290908244

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                      | Name                     | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers | Reads  |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT               |                          |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.08 |     178 |     15 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS OUTER            |                          |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.08 |     178 |     15 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                 |                          |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.08 |     178 |     15 |
|   3 |    INLIST ITERATOR             |                          |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.08 |     178 |     15 |
|*  4 |     TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX     |     50 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.08 |     178 |     15 |
|*  5 |      INDEX UNIQUE SCAN         | PK_TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX  |     50 |     50 |     50 |00:00:00.08 |      91 |     15 |
|   6 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | TABLE_YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |      0 |
|*  7 |     INDEX UNIQUE SCAN          | PK_ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ   |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |      0 |
|   8 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID  | TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT       |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |      0 |
|*  9 |    INDEX UNIQUE SCAN           | PK_TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT    |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |      0 |
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SQL>
SQL> alter session set "_fix_control"='9195582:OFF';

Session altered.

SQL> @test4.sql

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id  | Operation                      | Name                     | Starts | E-Rows | A-Rows |   A-Time   | Buffers |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|   0 | SELECT STATEMENT               |                          |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |     178 |
|   1 |  NESTED LOOPS OUTER            |                          |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |     178 |
|   2 |   NESTED LOOPS                 |                          |      1 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |     178 |
|   3 |    INLIST ITERATOR             |                          |      1 |        |      0 |00:00:00.01 |     178 |
|*  4 |     TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID| TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX     |     50 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |     178 |
|*  5 |      INDEX UNIQUE SCAN         | PK_TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX  |     50 |     50 |     50 |00:00:00.01 |      91 |
|   6 |    TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID | TABLE_YYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|*  7 |     INDEX UNIQUE SCAN          | PK_ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ   |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|   8 |   TABLE ACCESS BY INDEX ROWID  | TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT       |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
|*  9 |    INDEX UNIQUE SCAN           | PK_TABLE_TTTTTTTTTTTT    |      0 |      1 |      0 |00:00:00.01 |       0 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

As you can see we hit the jackpot when we disabled the fix 8893626. Our Table called TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX started to use PK_TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX instead of IDX_TABLE_XXXXXXXXXXXXXX_02 and ran faster.

this was a quick teaser post I will talk about this technique (you may think dodgy) further in the future

I may also add test case if I have time.

FootNote: This fix was for immediate action. Gathering stats is not helping us so we needed to apply it. I am not the big fun of these changes and as you see they are undocumented please do it with asking Oracle as we are doing at the moment.

For more about the bug

Bug 8893626 – Index Skip Scan with selective index filter predicate has high cost [ID 8893626.8]

For more about the optimizer_fix_control
Init.ora Parameter “_FIX_CONTROL” [Hidden] Reference Note [ID 567171.1]
http://el-caro.blogspot.com/2007/06/fix-control.html

Optimizer Features

Update – 24/01/11 – We now have an official bug for our issue
Bug 11672675: INDEX SKIP SCAN IS USED INAPPROPR. AFTER UPGR. FROM 11.2.0.1 -> 11.2.0.2

27 Comments »

  1. Hi Coskan,

    thanks for sharing this information which is useful for our future upgrades.

    BTW, the property fix_control can be used not only with alter session but also in hints:

    /*+ OPT_PARAM(‘_fix_control’ ‘9195582:0’) */

    Regards,
    Martin Decker – OCM11g
    ora-solutions.net

    Comment by Martin Decker — January 17, 2011 @ 1:38 pm

    • Thank you for your comments Martin. I know that we can use it as hint but the problem for us was that we could not touch the code. One thing we could try is tweak it with a baseline but then it becomes managing many queries with baselines nightmare. There isn’t just a simple solution 😦

      Comment by coskan — January 17, 2011 @ 1:43 pm

  2. Nice post Coskan.

    Comment by Dom Brooks — January 17, 2011 @ 3:04 pm

  3. Coskan

    Thanks for a straightforward and informative blog post. I hadn’t picked up on this technique – even though its quite old now – a much finer grained control than optimizer features enable.

    Comment by Niall Litchfield — January 17, 2011 @ 4:33 pm

  4. “I have awr option to check the plan changes”

    Could you please let me know how you did this?

    Comment by Yasser — January 17, 2011 @ 5:13 pm

  5. Good stuff!

    Comment by Tanel Poder — January 17, 2011 @ 6:14 pm

  6. Nice Post !

    Comment by Jagjeet Singh — January 17, 2011 @ 7:25 pm

  7. […] a very useful posting from Coskan Gundogar about tracking down a problem to do with an 11g […]

    Pingback by Fix Control « Oracle Scratchpad — January 28, 2011 @ 3:35 pm

  8. Great post, Coskan. Thank you for this valuable information.

    Comment by Arup Nanda — January 28, 2011 @ 3:42 pm

  9. Another great post from Coskan.

    Comment by Evren — January 28, 2011 @ 4:47 pm

  10. […] Nice blog post about a dbas approach to solving query problems (plan changes) after upgrade from 11.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2.  Find it here. […]

    Pingback by 11.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2 upgrade performance issues « Oracle Notes — January 28, 2011 @ 5:28 pm

  11. Great Post Coskan.Thank you for sharing

    Comment by ghassem — January 28, 2011 @ 8:15 pm

  12. This is a very helpful article for everyone who wants to troubleshoot performance issues.

    I have a question:

    You mentioned that you used a script to find out changes in execution plan by using Kerry’s script. I downloaded the script and executed.

    With that script, we know when the PLAN_HASH_VALUE is changed for a given SQL_ID. But how can we know the execution plan for these two different plan hash values?

    Thank You
    Giridhar

    Comment by Giridhar — January 28, 2011 @ 9:27 pm

    • Hi there,

      glad that you liked the post because more are on their way.

      For your question for spesific plan_hash_value I use below. you can chance ADVANCED to BASIC
      SELECT * FROM table(DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY_AWR((‘&sql_id’),&plan_hash,null,’ADVANCED’));

      for seeing all historic plans at one time I use this one which has truncated info for execution plan

      SELECT * FROM table(DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY_AWR((‘&sql_id’),null,null,’TYPICAL PROJECTION’));

      Basically your package is DBMS_XPLAN.DISPLAY_AWR

      Comment by Coskan Gundogar — January 28, 2011 @ 9:35 pm

  13. Coskan,

    Perfect timing. This is valuable information as we plan to upgrade to 11.2.0.2 next month. It’s good to know that there is a patch available already.

    Ittichai

    Comment by ittichai chammavanijakul — January 28, 2011 @ 10:31 pm

  14. […] I want to share another example with the bugfix I mentioned in this post. […]

    Pingback by Plan Stability Through Upgrade-Why is my plan changed?-bugfixes-1 « Coskan’s Approach to Oracle — February 14, 2011 @ 12:00 pm

  15. Hello Coskan,
    Thanks for this post, it turns out to be a useful one since we are planning to upgrade to 11.2.0.2 version sometime next month.

    We are using Oracle 10.2.0.4 at the moment and work on Oracle APEX applications. Does this in any way have an impact on this kind of a setup i.e. ORACLE APEX + ORACLE DB (Please note that we wont be upgrading Oracle APEX, it will be version 3.2 only)

    And the above bug, is it generic? Has Oracle identified this and patched it up ?

    Comment by Raja Shahnawaz Soni — June 1, 2011 @ 6:53 am

  16. Thank you sir, you just saved me a large headache.

    Comment by fred — July 29, 2011 @ 6:15 pm

  17. Brilliant Post. I was looking for something like this.

    Kind Regards,
    Harman

    Comment by Harmandeep Singh — November 21, 2011 @ 6:33 pm

  18. Really its a great article… Thaxs Sir for this information

    Comment by Amit — July 23, 2012 @ 6:33 am

  19. Thanks for the post. I started using SQLT Xplore method which is a brute force method of checking for CBO parameter and fix control bugs. Takes long time to run the test for one SQL.

    So I used system fix control view to narrow down bugs to 11.2.0.4 … I had to hack the XPLORE method code though.

    Anyways, thanks for the idea of using fix control.

    Comment by Uday — February 7, 2014 @ 3:58 pm

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  22. […] years ago Coskan Gundogar wrote a note about checking v$system_fix_control to see if it gave any clues about unexpected […]

    Pingback by 19c Trivia | Oracle Scratchpad — January 12, 2022 @ 11:18 am


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