Why is this PivotItem.Visible call throwing a TypeMismatch error?

Question

This is baffling us. I have a standard pivot table with a report filter on it that allows multiple selection of items. I can get the selected items in the report filter with:

Answer 1

My collegue found the answer after much Googling in this post:

For your information and for others with this problem - I have cracked it and done so simply!

I have found that by explicitly making the NUMBER format of the PivotField a DATE format (rather than GENERAL) then the .PivotItem.Visible = True instruction performs correctly under 2007, even with UK dd/mm/yyy date formats. However If Not .PivotItems(i).Visible Then still coughs with the type mismatch error. Changing the DATE format on the PivotField to dd mmm yyy (without also changing locale) makes the code work correctly under 2007.

NB: The option to set the NUMBER format of a Pivot Field appears to be only available if the source area of the Pivot Table is a DATA LIST. If the data source is simply a cell range, then the NUMBER button on the field setting diaglogue is absent.

It would appear that Excel 2003 correctly coalesces a GENERAL formatted cell containing a UK date to the 'correct date' and thus execute the VBA code as expected, whereas Excel 2007 / 2010 does not with the consequential type mismatch error. These versions need help by expressly making the PivotField NUMBER format DATE having a picture which is unambigious between months and days.

In short if you have this problem and you can format the PivotField as DATE the code will then work correctly.

More than anything else, the insight you provided that this code works fine under USA WRS was the eye-opener required to go look elsewhere beyond the VBA code for a solution. For that I am most grateful - THANK YOU!

I'm not going to pretend to understand most of that or why the format should have any effect at all on PivotItem properties, but it has worked. Our solution was slightly different to the answer detailed there: his report filter had the date format *dd/mm/yyyy. Changing it to dd/mm/yyyy fixed the issue. Totally baffling.