_optimizer_push_pred_cost_based and/or SQL Patch
This is a bit of a 'second opinion' on an SR I'm about to get wrapped up.
Here's the issue ...
Testing upgrade from 11.2.0.4 SE-One to 12.1.0.2.0 SE-2. Testing MV refreshes, and one particular MV consistently takes 3 to 4 minutes to refresh under 11.2, but under 12.1 (even with COMPATIBLE still set to 11.2.0) takes from 12 to 13 hours!
After a lot of back and forth and repeated testing, we ran a test of the mv refresh with the hidden parm "_optimizer_push_pred_cost_based"=false" set at the session level. That brought the time down to 7 minutes and change. Still not as good as before, but certainly back to an acceptable time.