PostgreSQL: exists against left join

Question

I have heard many times that postgres descriptors contain requests faster than the left. http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/2002-12/msg00185.php

This is definitely true for single table aggregation.

But in our case there are more than one and the same request to build with exists, which makes postgres hang forever:

explain 
SELECT count(DISTINCT "groups".id) AS count_all 
FROM "groups"
WHERE (exists(
    select * from products p where groups.id = p.group_id AND exists(
        select * from products_categories pc where p.id = pc.product_id AND pc.category_id in (2,3))) AND groups.id != 3) 

result:

 Aggregate  (cost=26413436.66..26413436.67 rows=1 width=4)
   ->  Seq Scan on groups  (cost=0.00..26413403.84 rows=13126 width=4)
         Filter: ((id <> 3) AND (subplan))
         SubPlan
           ->  Index Scan using index_products_on_group_id on products p  (cost=0.00..1006.13 rows=1 width=1483)
                 Index Cond: ($1 = group_id)
                 Filter: (subplan)
                 SubPlan
                   ->  Seq Scan on products_categories pc  (cost=0.00..498.49 rows=1 width=8)
                         Filter: ((category_id = ANY ('{2,3}'::integer[])) AND ($0 = product_id))

Is this the main reason for the incredibly long lead time? Is this some kind of configuration problem?

Thank you, Bogdan.

Answer 1

, "" postgresql products_categories, . , , , ?

SELECT count(DISTINCT "groups".id) AS count_all 
FROM "groups"
WHERE exists(
    select 1 from products p where groups.id = p.group_id
             join products_categories pc on pc.product_id = p.id
    where pc.category_id in (2,3)
    ) and groups.id <> 3

products_categories product_id?