ObservabilityintermediatePro runbook

Track ANALYZE progress on large and partitioned tables

ANALYZE on a partitioned table is really one job per partition plus one for the parent. pg_stat_progress_analyze shows which child it is on and how many sample blocks are left, sample the view while ANALYZE runs.

Problem

What you're actually looking at

The symptom as it shows up on a real server.

Statistics collection on a large partitioned table can take long enough that people assume it has hung, and there is no output until it commits. The parent and each child are separate units of work, so a single elapsed time tells you nothing about how far along you are.

consignment_history has four quarterly LIST partitions and reltuples is still -1 on all of them, which means nothing has ever been analyzed. Plans on the table are bad and an ANALYZE is about to fix them.

Simple terms

ANALYZE gathers the statistics the planner depends on, and on a big partitioned table it is really one job per partition plus one for the parent, with no output until it finishes. So a single elapsed time tells you nothing about how far along it is. pg_stat_progress_analyze shows which child partition it is working on and how many sample blocks are left, turning "is this hung?" into an actual progress bar.

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The scenario above is free. What Pro unlocks is the fix: how to identify track analyze progress on large and partitioned tables, the exact SQL to trace it, PostgreSQL 18 output for the steps we captured, the resolution path, and how to stop it recurring.
  • The full identify checklist, the exact signals that tell you it's this incident
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