Excel 2007 accessing PivotItem.Visible gives error if the field item value is a DATE

Question

I have VBA code to manipulate the content of a pivot table - essentially it hides all but the first N items in a pivotfield.  Under Excel 2003 the code works fine, as expected irrespective of the data content of the pivot field item.  Under Excel
2007, if the data content is a date, the VBA code generates one of several error conditions.
pivotItems(i).Visible = True
Generates error 1004 - Unable to set the visible property of the pivot class
If pivotItems(i).Visible = True then...
Trying to test the visibility generates error 13 - type mismatch
?pivotItems(i).Visible
Trying to determine the visibility of the pivot item in the VBA immediate window, this generates error 2042
I have an illustrative spreadsheet which permits the code to process two different pivot tables, one using a field containg dates; the other a field containing text.  Under Excel 2003, the code works on both pivot tables.  Under Excel 2007 it works
on the text field table, but fails on the date field table.
I have looked for answers on numerous support forums including answers.microsoft but found not found any answers... only the same or similar unanswered question.

Answer 1

Hi Herbert,
Thank you for your continued interest; please find a revised illustration of the problem here -
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?zc6ty9ctl1n7yd9
I have made the following changes / additions to the problem illustrator:-
Adopted the use of lists for the data source of the pivot table
Removed reference to '(blank)' as a reserved item not hidden by the VBA code to avoid the possibility of hiding all items
In respect of my original code (MK1), utilised a 'real' item name to be the
reserved item
Added a new (MK2) macro to alter the number of visible items which
hides all but one of the VisibleItems collection
makes the first N items in the collection visible
checks that there are only N items visible (the position of the reserved item
might be greater than N)
The code still executes as expected under 2003, but fails (the same as before) under 2007 when the data type of the PivotItem is date.
The MK1 code fails when testing the current visibility of the Item before trying to set the visibility with:- RTE 1004 Unable to
get the PivotItems property of the PivotField Class
The MK2 code fails when trying to set the visibility with:- RTE 1004 Unable to
set the Visible property of the PivotItem Class as reported above.  Note - given that MK2 avoids trying hide invisible items or unhide visible items, I no longer believe that this error is due to the attempt
to set visibility to current state as seen under Excel 2003. I am deeply confused by this now!
I observe with care the different CLASSES on which these failures are reported even though in each case the operations are on the PivotItem.Visible property - MK1 queries it / MK2 attempts to alter it. 
Just in case you have been wondering where this is going, this spreadsheet has no prupose beyond illustrating the Excel 2003 / 2007 problem being encountered elsewhere when manipulating pivot table items whose value are dates.  The requirement
is to provide a simple user interface to a complex managing reporting spreadsheet consisting of a significant number of pivot tables and charts - altering one cell causes the VBA code to modify the collection of pivot tables to deliver a revised view of the
data.  All works fine for 2003 users of the model, but not 2007 users.  I need one spreadsheet which will work correctly on both 2003 & 2007.
Regards.