Don, I don't think it will run asynchonously. I think the problem is that you didn't specify gathering_mode, and it defaults to NOWORKLOAD, which means the interval you specified was ignored. Try adding: gathering_mode=>'INTERVAL' to the argument list and run it again. -Mark -- Mark J. Bobak Senior Oracle Architect ProQuest Information & Learning There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which shouldn't be done at all. -Peter F. Drucker, 1909-2005 -----Original Message----- From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Don Seiler Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2006 3:03 PM To: Christian Antognini Cc: oracle-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Updating system statistics Alright I ran this command: exec dbms_stats.gather_system_stats(interval=>90,stattab=>'SYSSTATS',statid=> 'DEC12'); It returned in a minute, so I assume that it runs in the background now. I've noticed two rows in my SYSSTATS table, but the column names are a bit unintuitive. Is there a HOWTO on interpreting that data? Don. On 12/12/06, Christian Antognini <Christian.Antognini@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > > So gathering system stats to the user table won't alter CBO behavior > > then? I assume I have to create that table with > > dbms_stats.create_stat_table() function. > > Exactly. > -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l