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How do I find the most expensive queries in my ClickHouse platform?

· 6 min read

The query_log table in the system database keeps track of all your queries, including:

  • how much memory the query consumed, and
  • how much CPU time was needed

The following query returns the top 10 queries, where "top" means the queries that used the most memory:

SELECT
    type,
    event_time,
    initial_query_id,
    query_id,
    formatReadableSize(memory_usage) AS memory,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'UserTimeMicroseconds')] AS userCPU,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'SystemTimeMicroseconds')] AS systemCPU,
    normalizedQueryHash(query) AS normalized_query_hash
FROM clusterAllReplicas(default, system.query_log)
ORDER BY memory_usage DESC
LIMIT 10;

The response looks like:

┌─type────────┬──────────event_time─┬─initial_query_id─────────────────────┬─memory─────┬─────userCPU─┬──systemCPU─┬─normalized_query_hash─┐
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 21:36:07 │ 7fc488a5-838f-410d-88ee-2f492825a26b │ 3.45 GiB   │ 28147128901 │ 8590897697 │    178963678599600243 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 21:36:04 │ 7fc488a5-838f-410d-88ee-2f492825a26b │ 1.18 GiB   │ 10194162387 │ 1183376457 │   4121209451971717712 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 21:36:06 │ 7fc488a5-838f-410d-88ee-2f492825a26b │ 1.16 GiB   │ 10516510952 │ 1484303318 │   4121209451971717712 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 21:35:59 │ 7fc488a5-838f-410d-88ee-2f492825a26b │ 1.14 GiB   │ 11484580963 │ 1464145099 │   4121209451971717712 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 21:47:01 │ 8119e682-a343-4847-96e7-d34ad8a748a1 │ 455.29 MiB │   123340498 │    8234304 │  10687606311941357470 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 22:07:05 │ f2690e48-fe1e-4367-ae9d-435d962003a5 │ 377.94 MiB │  2358130001 │  668098391 │   5988812223780974416 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 20:45:42 │ 04618222-40a1-4299-8c3d-9f050a82d849 │ 18.48 MiB  │       24676 │      16620 │   3205198713665290475 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 22:14:37 │ badf1097-5f8f-4486-88e9-3a5ac2e4734c │ 17.41 MiB  │      186234 │     148739 │   1910846996890686559 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 21:39:42 │ 8d373327-f566-4cd5-9f2c-cec75f534751 │ 16.19 MiB  │       23169 │      12365 │   3205198713665290475 │
│ QueryFinish │ 2023-03-26 21:35:42 │ ea672dba-7c10-4dd4-b819-cad9dccbf5d0 │ 13.97 MiB  │       20696 │       8001 │   3205198713665290475 │
└─────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────┴────────────┴───────────────────────┘
Note

The initial_query_id represents the ID of the initial query for distributed query execution launched from the node receiving the request. The query_id contains the ID of the child query executed on a different node. See this article for more details.

You can use the query ID to extract more details about the query. Let's research our longest running query above (the first one):

SELECT query
FROM clusterAllReplicas(default, system.query_log)
WHERE initial_query_id = '7fc488a5-838f-410d-88ee-2f492825a26b'

It turns out to be the query we used to insert a few billion rows of data into a table named youtube (see the YouTube dislikes dataset):

INSERT INTO youtube
SETTINGS input_format_null_as_default = 1
SELECT
    id,
    parseDateTimeBestEffortUS(toString(fetch_date)) AS fetch_date,
    upload_date,
    ifNull(title, '') AS title,
    uploader_id,
    ifNull(uploader, '') AS uploader,
    uploader_sub_count,
    is_age_limit,
    view_count,
    like_count,
    dislike_count,
    is_crawlable,
    has_subtitles,
    is_ads_enabled,
    is_comments_enabled,
    ifNull(description, '') AS description,
    rich_metadata,
    super_titles,
    ifNull(uploader_badges, '') AS uploader_badges,
    ifNull(video_badges, '') AS video_badges
FROM s3Cluster('default','https://clickhouse-public-datasets.s3.amazonaws.com/youtube/original/files/*.zst', 'JSONLines')

initial_query_id VS query_id​

Note that in a clustered ClickHouse environment (like ClickHouse Cloud) initial_query_id represents the ID of the initial query for distributed query execution launched from the node receiving the request; then query_id field will contain the ID of the child query executed on a different node.

If we add query_id to the above query we pin our search around initial_query_id = a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 and hostname():

SELECT
    hostname(),
    type,
    event_time,
    initial_query_id,
    query_id,
    formatReadableSize(memory_usage) AS memory,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'UserTimeMicroseconds')] AS userCPU,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'SystemTimeMicroseconds')] AS systemCPU,
    normalizedQueryHash(query) AS normalized_query_hash
FROM clusterAllReplicas(default, system.query_log)
WHERE initial_query_id = 'a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417'
ORDER BY memory_usage DESC
LIMIT 10 FORMAT Pretty;

we will get:

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ hostname()             ┃ type        ┃          event_time ┃ initial_query_id                     ┃ query_id                             ┃ memory     ┃ userCPU ┃ systemCPU ┃ normalized_query_hash ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ server-0 │ QueryFinish │ 2023-04-26 06:25:53 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 1f810b3c-b3cb-4a7b-bc6c-8c8cc1e52515 │ 125.13 MiB │ 1754290 │    133344 │  17604798521132779336 │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ server-2 │ QueryFinish │ 2023-04-26 06:25:53 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 123.08 MiB │ 1849115 │    123412 │   4258439895846105173 │
└────────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┘
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ hostname()             ┃ type        ┃          event_time ┃ initial_query_id                     ┃ query_id                             ┃ memory    ┃ userCPU ┃ systemCPU ┃ normalized_query_hash ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ server-1 │ QueryFinish │ 2023-04-26 06:25:53 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 7dfd9297-5173-4be7-a866-d7cbe1e1abab │ 93.77 MiB │ 1890981 │    101724 │  17604798521132779336 │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ server-1 │ QueryStart  │ 2023-04-26 06:25:52 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 7dfd9297-5173-4be7-a866-d7cbe1e1abab │ 0.00 B    │       0 │         0 │  17604798521132779336 │
└────────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴───────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┘
┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ hostname()             ┃ type       ┃          event_time ┃ initial_query_id                     ┃ query_id                             ┃ memory ┃ userCPU ┃ systemCPU ┃ normalized_query_hash ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ server-0 │ QueryStart │ 2023-04-26 06:25:52 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 1f810b3c-b3cb-4a7b-bc6c-8c8cc1e52515 │ 0.00 B │       0 │         0 │  17604798521132779336 │
├────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ server-2 │ QueryStart │ 2023-04-26 06:25:52 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 0.00 B │       0 │         0 │   4258439895846105173 │
└────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┘

Note we have several results from several hosts (the different cluster nodes).

To refine further and get only the child queries we could also add the query_id != initial_query_id condition to the WHERE clause:

SELECT
    hostname(),
    type,
    event_time,
    initial_query_id,
    query_id,
    formatReadableSize(memory_usage) AS memory,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'UserTimeMicroseconds')] AS userCPU,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'SystemTimeMicroseconds')] AS systemCPU,
    normalizedQueryHash(query) AS normalized_query_hash
FROM clusterAllReplicas(default, system.query_log)
WHERE (query_id = initial_query_id) AND (initial_query_id = 'a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417')
ORDER BY memory_usage DESC
LIMIT 10 FORMAT Pretty;

returns all the child queries executed on the remote nodes (remote to the node where the query was first thrown at):

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ hostname()             ┃ type        ┃          event_time ┃ initial_query_id                     ┃ query_id                             ┃ memory     ┃ userCPU ┃ systemCPU ┃ normalized_query_hash ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ server-1 │ QueryFinish │ 2023-04-26 06:25:53 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 7dfd9297-5173-4be7-a866-d7cbe1e1abab │ 93.77 MiB  │ 1890981 │    101724 │  17604798521132779336 │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ server-0 │ QueryFinish │ 2023-04-26 06:25:53 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 1f810b3c-b3cb-4a7b-bc6c-8c8cc1e52515 │ 125.13 MiB │ 1754290 │    133344 │  17604798521132779336 │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ server-1 │ QueryStart  │ 2023-04-26 06:25:52 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 7dfd9297-5173-4be7-a866-d7cbe1e1abab │ 0.00 B     │       0 │         0 │  17604798521132779336 │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ server-0 │ QueryStart  │ 2023-04-26 06:25:52 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 1f810b3c-b3cb-4a7b-bc6c-8c8cc1e52515 │ 0.00 B     │       0 │         0 │  17604798521132779336 │
└────────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┘
└────────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┘

conversely, query_id = initial_query_id will return only the queries executed on the local node where the distributed query was first thrown at:

SELECT
    hostname(),
    type,
    event_time,
    initial_query_id,
    query_id,
    formatReadableSize(memory_usage) AS memory,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'UserTimeMicroseconds')] AS userCPU,
    ProfileEvents.Values[indexOf(ProfileEvents.Names, 'SystemTimeMicroseconds')] AS systemCPU,
    normalizedQueryHash(query) AS normalized_query_hash
FROM clusterAllReplicas(default, system.query_log)
WHERE (query_id = initial_query_id) AND (initial_query_id = 'a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417')
ORDER BY memory_usage DESC
LIMIT 10 FORMAT Pretty;

giving:

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ hostname()             ┃ type        ┃          event_time ┃ initial_query_id                     ┃ query_id                             ┃ memory     ┃ userCPU ┃ systemCPU ┃ normalized_query_hash ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ server-2 │ QueryFinish │ 2023-04-26 06:25:53 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 123.08 MiB │ 1849115 │    123412 │   4258439895846105173 │
├────────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼──────────────────────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────┼───────────┼───────────────────────┤
│ server-2 │ QueryStart  │ 2023-04-26 06:25:52 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ a7262fa2-bd8b-4b51-a359-621ccf282417 │ 0.00 B     │       0 │         0 │   4258439895846105173 │
└────────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴──────────────────────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────┴───────────┴───────────────────────┘

As for other System Tables, you can find more details about the meaning of each field in our docs.