BuddyPress.org

I feel like I might just be out of luck but wondering if there’s some way to make this not so slow

Refreshing the activity page and within 1 second there are 20 activites loaded in the stream.

Adding this meta_query makes the wait time a solid 5 seconds.

QUERY: Array
(
    [type] => activity_update,created_group,new_avatar
    [action] => activity_update,created_group,new_avatar
    [populate_extras] => false
    [per_page] => 2
    [meta_query] => Array
        (
            [0] => Array
                (
                    [key] => flagged_by_user_id
                    [compare] => NOT EXISTS
                )
        )
)

It’s just checking if the activity has been “flagged”, and if there is a value it has been, so it should not be shown.

(Even if I reduce per_page=2 it’s still the same amount of slow)

Oddly, if I change it to “EXISTS” it’s very speedy. Only difference because only a few posts have that particular meta_key applied to them. I don’t understand why this is though because regardless if the key exists or not, the DB query check has to be performed. So why is it faster?