[Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>]

Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com> writes:
> I'll address the instability of the regression test output separately.

If you're still looking for data on that --- prairiedog is able to
reproduce the "multibatch = f" variant about one time in thirty.
I modified the test case to print out the full EXPLAIN ANALYZE output
rather than a heavily filtered version.  Here's a typical successful run:

! explain analyze
    select length(max(s.t))
    from wide left join (select id, coalesce(t, '') || '' as t from wide) s using (id);
!                                                                    QUERY PLAN                                                                   
! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
!  Finalize Aggregate  (cost=97.49..97.51 rows=1 width=4) (actual time=409.330..409.331 rows=1 loops=1)
!    ->  Gather  (cost=97.28..97.49 rows=2 width=32) (actual time=376.957..395.841 rows=3 loops=1)
!          Workers Planned: 2
!          Workers Launched: 2
!          ->  Partial Aggregate  (cost=97.28..97.29 rows=1 width=32) (actual time=254.370..254.373 rows=1 loops=3)
!                ->  Parallel Hash Left Join  (cost=23.23..88.88 rows=3360 width=32) (actual time=240.812..241.297 rows=1 loops=3)
!                      Hash Cond: (wide.id = wide_1.id)
!                      ->  Parallel Seq Scan on wide  (cost=0.00..15.29 rows=529 width=4) (actual time=0.066..0.075 rows=1 loops=3)
!                      ->  Parallel Hash  (cost=16.61..16.61 rows=529 width=36) (actual time=109.565..109.565 rows=1 loops=3)
!                            Buckets: 1024 (originally 2048)  Batches: 8 (originally 1)  Memory Usage: 321kB
!                            ->  Parallel Seq Scan on wide wide_1  (cost=0.00..16.61 rows=529 width=36) (actual time=2.989..7.218 rows=1 loops=3)
!  Planning time: 1.317 ms
!  Execution time: 424.395 ms
! (13 rows)

and here's a failing run:

! explain analyze
    select length(max(s.t))
    from wide left join (select id, coalesce(t, '') || '' as t from wide) s using (id);
!                                                                    QUERY PLAN                                                                    
! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
!  Finalize Aggregate  (cost=97.49..97.51 rows=1 width=4) (actual time=232.440..232.441 rows=1 loops=1)
!    ->  Gather  (cost=97.28..97.49 rows=2 width=32) (actual time=225.738..226.744 rows=3 loops=1)
!          Workers Planned: 2
!          Workers Launched: 2
!          ->  Partial Aggregate  (cost=97.28..97.29 rows=1 width=32) (actual time=29.377..29.379 rows=1 loops=3)
!                ->  Parallel Hash Left Join  (cost=23.23..88.88 rows=3360 width=32) (actual time=22.747..25.340 rows=1 loops=3)
!                      Hash Cond: (wide.id = wide_1.id)
!                      ->  Parallel Seq Scan on wide  (cost=0.00..15.29 rows=529 width=4) (actual time=0.086..0.113 rows=2 loops=1)
!                      ->  Parallel Hash  (cost=16.61..16.61 rows=529 width=36) (actual time=16.382..16.382 rows=1 loops=3)
!                            Buckets: 1024 (originally 2048)  Batches: 1 (originally 1)  Memory Usage: 0kB
!                            ->  Parallel Seq Scan on wide wide_1  (cost=0.00..16.61 rows=529 width=36) (actual time=9.167..21.301 rows=2 loops=1)
!  Planning time: 1.289 ms
!  Execution time: 243.120 ms
! (13 rows)
  
I don't have enough insight to be totally sure what this means, but the
"Memory Usage: 0kB" bit is obviously bogus, so I'd venture that at least
part of the issue is failure to return stats from a worker.  I also find
it most curious that the "success" case is a lot slower than the "not
success" case.  Perhaps this is related to your livelock issue?  Doing
another run, I get something even slower:

! explain analyze
    select length(max(s.t))
    from wide left join (select id, coalesce(t, '') || '' as t from wide) s using (id);
!                                                                    QUERY PLAN                                                                    
! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
!  Finalize Aggregate  (cost=97.49..97.51 rows=1 width=4) (actual time=487.245..487.246 rows=1 loops=1)
!    ->  Gather  (cost=97.28..97.49 rows=2 width=32) (actual time=444.650..475.390 rows=3 loops=1)
!          Workers Planned: 2
!          Workers Launched: 2
!          ->  Partial Aggregate  (cost=97.28..97.29 rows=1 width=32) (actual time=345.816..345.819 rows=1 loops=3)
!                ->  Parallel Hash Left Join  (cost=23.23..88.88 rows=3360 width=32) (actual time=334.229..338.098 rows=1 loops=3)
!                      Hash Cond: (wide.id = wide_1.id)
!                      ->  Parallel Seq Scan on wide  (cost=0.00..15.29 rows=529 width=4) (actual time=0.065..0.074 rows=1 loops=3)
!                      ->  Parallel Hash  (cost=16.61..16.61 rows=529 width=36) (actual time=140.210..140.210 rows=1 loops=3)
!                            Buckets: 1024 (originally 2048)  Batches: 8 (originally 1)  Memory Usage: 321kB
!                            ->  Parallel Seq Scan on wide wide_1  (cost=0.00..16.61 rows=529 width=36) (actual time=4.233..15.117 rows=1 loops=3)
!  Planning time: 1.380 ms
!  Execution time: 509.607 ms
! (13 rows)


Aside from the instability problems, I'm pretty unhappy about how much
the PHJ patch has added to the runtime of "make check".  I do not think
any one feature can justify adding 20% to that.  Can't you cut down the
amount of data processed by these new test cases?

			regards, tom lane