I apologize for not reading your question more thoroughly before responding initially. "Occupational hazard" (dyslexia). :-)

Looking at DTOC() function VFP9 SP2 help:

DTOC(date[,1])
1 - Returns the date in a format suitable for indexing. This is particularly useful for maintaining the table records in chronological sequence.
For example, to order table records in entry sequence, you could issue this command:
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INDEX ON DTOC(gdInvDate, 1) + gnInvTime TAG Timeindx

As for the reason you're getting the error ... odd.

Try LIST STATUS TO file1.txt from the place it fails, and LIST STATUS TO file2.txt from the place it succeeds, and do a diff on them. Maybe there's a spurious setting cropping up somewhere.

I've never seen that before. Only on memo fields, or conditional IIF()s that were wrong.