MySQL explain shows that main table's indexes are not used at production server

Question

I am trying to optimize the following modified MySQL query from OsCommerce:

select distinct p.products_id, pd.products_name, m.manufacturers_name, s.specials_new_products_price from products p 
inner join products_description pd on p.products_id = pd.products_id
inner join products_to_categories p2c on p.products_id = p2c.products_id 
left join manufacturers m on p.manufacturers_id = m.manufacturers_id 
left join specials s on p.products_id = s.products_id and s.specials_b2bgroup =0 
where p.products_status = '1' and p.products_model not like '%_VIP' and pd.language_id = '4' and p2c.categories_id = '1574' 
order by p.products_ordernum, p.products_model

Running explain on production server it seems that no indexes are used for table products at join:

id  select_type     table   type    possible_keys   key     key_len     ref     rows    Extra
1   SIMPLE  p   ALL     PRIMARY     NULL        NULL NULL   6729    Using where; Using temporary; Using filesort
1   SIMPLE  m   eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     4   p.manufacturers_id  1    
1   SIMPLE  s   ref     products_id products_id 4   p.products_id   2    
1   SIMPLE  pd  eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     8   p.products_id,const     1    
1   SIMPLE  p2c eq_ref  PRIMARY     PRIMARY     8   pd.products_id,const    1   Using where; Using index; Distinct

The schema for table products is the following:

CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS `products` (
  `products_id` int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
  `products_model` varchar(50) default NULL,
  `products_image` varchar(250) default NULL,
  `products_price` decimal(15,4) NOT NULL default '0.0000',
  `products_date_added` datetime NOT NULL default '0000-00-00 00:00:00',
  `products_last_modified` datetime default NULL,
  `products_date_available` datetime default NULL,
  `products_weight` decimal(5,2) NOT NULL default '0.00',
  `products_status` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0',
  `products_showprod` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0',
  `products_showprice` tinyint(1) NOT NULL default '0',
  `products_ordernum` int(6) NOT NULL default '100',
  `products_tax_class_id` int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
  `manufacturers_id` int(11) default NULL,
  PRIMARY KEY  (`products_id`),
  KEY `idx_products_model` (`products_model`),
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=greek AUTO_INCREMENT=1;

My server's MySQL version is 5.0.92. Any thoughts on where to look for a solution are realy welcome!

Answer 1

There are only two constraints in that query on the products table, which you have declared as the "master" table (because everything else is JOIN ON): products_status (not indexed) and products_model. But NOT LIKE '%...' is not an indexable constraint, so it is faster to do a simple scan.

The index would be useful if the % came in the middle or end of the LIKE pattern. Even so, the NOT might still make the linear scan faster.