>Thank you Naomi...this works. I am still trying to understand why the original statement stopped working...
>
>
>

>;with cte As (select distinct EDP from  [AMSWHSERVER3\AMS].slotting.dbo.productinfo)
>
>select CASE WHEN LTRIm(RTRIM(LEN(cUPCNo))) = 5 THEN '0'+ LTRIM(RTRIm(cUPCNo)) ELSE LTRIM(RTRIm(cUPCNo)) END as cUPCNo, 
>		cSKUId, iForecastQty, cEDPNo, cMacsDescript, 
>		cECometryVendorNo, cPVB, cProductTypeId, iWarehouseLocId, 
>		cProductFamilyId, nCaseQty,
>		CASE WHEN lBuyInCase = 1 THEN 'YES' ELSE 'NO' END as lBuyInCase
>	from [BIZTALK\PRODUCTION1].MerchNew.dbo.m_newItem N 
>                     LEFT JOIN CTE ON N.cEDPNo = cte.EDP
>	where lSlottingUpload = 1 and CTE.EDP IS NULL
>	And dSlottingUpload = '2009-06-17 13:35:15.000'
>

I can only speculate - I think the original may have used too much memory or something. In this way as it's now it's much easier to maintain and also the problem is separated to two pieces.