COUNT(*) on InnoDB whenever phpMyAdmin loads

Question

It's a known issue that innodb is slow in

SELECT count(*) FROM Table

Hence I avoided that. But I notice that whenever I login to phpmyadmin, it will automatically execute a count(*) for my innodb table with 19k rows, which can take up to a minute to execute. Yet it doesn't initiate such count(*) for the other innodb table with 4 million rows.

Another clue, in phpmyadmin, under the Records column, the number of records for the 19k-row table is showing the exact value whereas the 4-million-row table is showing an approx.

I understand innodb table gives an estimation of the row count. But it seems that for smaller table, in this case with 19k rows, phpmyadmin decides to do a count(*) instead of just giving an estimation.

Question is, is there a way to stop phpmyadmin from doing such count on my innodb table? It's okay to just give an estimation instead of doing an expensive row count whenever I refresh my phpmyadmin screen.

Answer 1

Edit config.inc.php, and change the setting for MaxExactCount.

$cfg['MaxExactCount']
    Type:   integer
    Default value:  500000

For InnoDB tables, determines for how large tables phpMyAdmin should get the 
exact row count using SELECT COUNT. If the approximate row count as returned 
by SHOW TABLE STATUS is smaller than this value, SELECT COUNT will be used, 
otherwise the approximate count will be used.

Answer 2

phpMyAdmin will only do an actual select count(*) if the estimated number of rows are within the set threshold (default is 500k depending on your version):

$cfg['MaxExactCount']

For InnoDB tables, determines for how large tables phpMyAdmin should get the exact row count using SELECT COUNT. If the approximate row count as returned by SHOW TABLE STATUS is smaller than this value, SELECT COUNT will be used, otherwise the approximate count will be used.

Simply set the threshold to a smaller number to avoid pointless select count(*)s.