Question

I have a Hibernate/JPA query which performs a simple query based on an indexed field in the database. The table is fairly large with around 28 million records but when using the database directly the query returns instantaneously, with Hibernate+JPA it takes over 20 seconds. The database is PostgreSQL 9.0.4.

This is an extract of the logs including the relevant query and from the timestamps you can see a long delay between the query getting issued and opening the ResultSet.

2011-09-28 06:26:38,019 [http-thread-pool-8080(5)] DEBUG org.hibernate.jdbc.AbstractBatcher - about to open PreparedStatement (open PreparedStatements: 0, globally: 0)
2011-09-28 06:26:38,019 [http-thread-pool-8080(5)] DEBUG org.hibernate.jdbc.ConnectionManager - opening JDBC connection
2011-09-28 06:26:38,020 [http-thread-pool-8080(5)] DEBUG org.hibernate.SQL - select pafaddress0_.address_id as address1_0_, pafaddress0_.admin1 as admin2_0_, pafaddress0_.admin2 as admin3_0_, pafaddress0_.admin3 as admin4_0_, pafaddress0_.barcode as barcode0_, pafaddress0_.building_name as building6_0_, pafaddress0_.building_number as building7_0_, pafaddress0_.country_name as country8_0_, pafaddress0_.dependent_locality as dependent9_0_, pafaddress0_.dependent_street as dependent10_0_, pafaddress0_.dept_name as dept11_0_, pafaddress0_.double_dep_locality as double12_0_, pafaddress0_.dps as dps0_, pafaddress0_.mailsort as mailsort0_, pafaddress0_.org_name as org15_0_, pafaddress0_.pca_id as pca16_0_, pafaddress0_.pobox as pobox0_, pafaddress0_.postcode as postcode0_, pafaddress0_.postcode1 as postcode19_0_, pafaddress0_.postcode_type as postcode20_0_, pafaddress0_.street as street0_, pafaddress0_.su_org_indicator as su22_0_, pafaddress0_.subbuilding_name as subbuil23_0_, pafaddress0_.posttown as posttown0_, pafaddress0_.trad_county as trad25_0_, pafaddress0_.type as type0_, pafaddress0_.udprn as udprn0_ from paf pafaddress0_ where pafaddress0_.pca_id=? limit ?
2011-09-28 06:27:01,897 [http-thread-pool-8080(5)] DEBUG org.hibernate.jdbc.AbstractBatcher - about to open ResultSet (open ResultSets: 0, globally: 0)
2011-09-28 06:27:01,900 [http-thread-pool-8080(5)] DEBUG org.hibernate.jdbc.AbstractBatcher - about to close ResultSet (open ResultSets: 1, globally: 1)
2011-09-28 06:27:01,900 [http-thread-pool-8080(5)] DEBUG org.hibernate.jdbc.AbstractBatcher - about to close PreparedStatement (open PreparedStatements: 1, globally: 1)
2011-09-28 06:27:01,900 [http-thread-pool-8080(5)] DEBUG org.hibernate.jdbc.ConnectionManager - aggressively releasing JDBC connection
201

My Entity has no complex associations and there are no indications in the logs as to what is going on during this long delay.

@Entity
@Table(name = "paf")
@NamedQueries({
        @NamedQuery(name = "PafAddress.findByPcaId", query = "SELECT a FROM PafAddress a where a.pcaId=:pcaId ")
})
public class PafAddress implements Serializable, Identifiable<Long> {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = -5831210090000717285L;

    @Id
    @Column(name = "address_id")
    private Long id;

    private String postcode;

    @Column(name = "posttown")
    private String town;

    @Column(name = "dependent_locality")
    private String dependentLocality;

    @Column(name = "double_dep_locality")
    private String doubleDepLocality;

    @Column(name = "street")
    private String street;

    @Column(name = "dependent_street")
    private String dependentStreet;

    @Column(name = "building_number")
    private String buildingNumber;

    @Column(name = "building_name")
    private String buildingName;

    @Column(name = "subbuilding_name")
    private String subbuildingName;

    @Column(name = "pobox")
    private String pobox;

    @Column(name = "dept_name")
    private String deptName;

    @Column(name = "org_name")
    private String orgName;

    @Column(name = "udprn")
    private String udprn;

    @Column(name = "postcode_type")
    private String postcodeType;

    @Column(name = "su_org_indicator")
    private String suOrgIndicator;

    @Column(name = "dps")
    private String dps;

    @Column(name = "postcode1")
    private String postcode1;

    @Column(name = "admin1")
    private String admin1;

    @Column(name = "admin2")
    private String admin2;

    @Column(name = "admin3")
    private String admin3;

    @Column(name = "trad_county")
    private String tradCounty;

    @Column(name = "country_name")
    private String countryName;

    @Column(name = "mailsort")
    private String mailsort;

    @Column(name = "barcode")
    private String barcode;

    @Column(name = "type")
    private String type;

    @Column(name = "pca_id")
    private Double pcaId;

    public PafAddress() {
    }

Any ideas as to why this query is performing so badly or how I can determine the cause?

Answer 1

I’ve discovered the problem:

I enabled auto_explain in PostgreSQL for queries taking >1 second which enabled me to see the query plan in the logs.
see http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/auto-explain.html

For the Hibernate/JPA query:

Limit  (cost=0.00..13.12 rows=2 width=469)
  ->  Seq Scan on paf pafaddress0_  (cost=0.00..943043.74 rows=143753 width=469)
        Filter: ((pca_id)::double precision = 7912139::double precision)

Native database query:

                                          QUERY PLAN                                              
 Limit  (cost=0.00..7.03 rows=2 width=469)
   ->  Index Scan using paf_pca_idx on paf pafaddress0_  (cost=0.00..505649.83 rows=143753 width=469)
         Index Cond: (pca_id = 7912139::numeric)

It was slow because a sequential scan was being performed instead of using the index, seemingly as a result of a type mismatch between my entity and database field. The entity property was a ‘Double’, whilst the database type was ‘numeric’ and the query explanation shows a cast of the database field occurring to double double precision.

I changed my database field type to double precision and the query is now performing as expected.