Re: Queries locking up

[Rick James]

LIKE with a leading wildcard (%) cannot be optimized. So there is no use adding it to the INDEX.

The same index should work nicely:
INDEX(item_type_id, has_photo, normalized_time)
It will use the first two fields to satisfy (partially) the WHERE clause.
Then, (I think, but I am not sure), it will fetch the rows in normalized_time order. This will prevent a sort later.

EXPLAIN that query. If it does not say filesort, the my guess was right.

"Pagination via OFFSET and LIMIT" (LIMIT ?,?) is inefficient.
http://mysql.rjweb.org/doc.php/pagination