I'm seeing a regression in query optimization after testing a database+query that was running well on MariaDB 10.0. The issue occurs on an installation of 10.4.18. Version 10.4 considers the plan that 10.0 used but dismisses it as having a cost of 2e308 [1]. The plan 10.4 chooses is highly non-optimal. Based on reviewing some source code, it looks like this sort of "max" cost should only result if summing/multiplying other costs would exceed that maximum. The usual steps of rebuilding tables and index statistics don't help, especially because the JSON output for the optimization plan already shows reasonable index use costs. (The 2e308 cost only starts appearing in a later section.) Because 10.0 lacks the same optimization tracing as 10.4, here is the EXPLAIN output for comparison [2]. Hopefully, there's just something simple amiss and posting here helps anyone else who encounters a 2e308 cost on query optimization plans. I tried to see if this may be fixed in 10.5+, but I haven't found much discussion online of this phenomenon. [1] https://gist.github.com/davidstrauss/becb03fa75ecac046cafe6f05da9f869#file-o... [2] https://gist.github.com/davidstrauss/becb03fa75ecac046cafe6f05da9f869#file-e...