Hi Howard, thanks for your response.

No, we don't have any servers that still run 2005, but your explanation makes the most sense to what is happening on the server. I know for a fact that the transaction log file in the user database was considerably larger and had been shrunk (due to a poor DBA decision) when we ported our production server from our old machine to the new machine. This would indicate why we hadn't seen this problem in years.

We've negotatiated the problem by simply introducing more log space, though I'd like to see Microsoft retract their statement that when SORT_IN_TEMPDB is used "The index transactions will be stored in the tempdb transaction log, and the concurrent user transactions will be stored in the transaction log of the user database." This is obviously not the case.

Thanks to everyone on their input here. I think the only thing to do from this point would be to ask MSFT to clarify the quoted text from this article: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms184246(v=SQL.100).aspx. Perhaps I'll open a support request with them for this (though support requests opened with MSFT have often been a disappoinment for me, due to the seeming lack of dedication from the MSFT support engineers.)

Cheers,

Charley