Oracle Database Discussions

Hi,

I am doing a purge of stats history on my database and it is taking ages for what I believe should be a small data set

I have checked the stats history retention using

select dbms_stats.get_stats_history_availability from dual;
26/11/2010 22:10:42.668499000 +00:00

select sysdate-500
from dual;
12/12/2010 10:52:09

exec dbms_stats.purge_stats(sysdate-500);

The above purge has been running for over an hour ( and is still going ! ). This is on a test system with no real other activity going on within it.

Q1. Why is the above purge taking so long on what should be a relatively small data set ?

any help greatly appreciated,
Jim