Getting the error "can't be used as a single value" all over my Numbers sheet, after the recent update version 11.2 (7032.0.145)

And, "Action" is worth a thousand pictures! and I did something different and take action based on what you said (for the benefit of the doubt); halfway through drafting my response, I stopped reluctantly, and took to your flawless advice! and sure enough, I am trucking again. I said, lets see how far we go. I traced it to a calendar function, I badly wrote two years ago. Although it was part my error, and some ghost action going on there. The error had to do with a date function which triggered the hot mess. It had to line up just right to show the error, which so happened to coincide with the day I installed the updates (so it was fine one day, and the next day lit up like Christmas as many sheets depended on the calendar. The ghost action was that it was failing to report the length of a cell, which I could clearly see had a value, the length of three characters. For some odd reason it read zero, and you know how that goes. Zero barely gets along with a lot of things. So, I basically added and extra check and it cleared (if the length of the cell reports zero on any particular date), to return the value of zero and not to bother with calculations. I noticed an adjacent cell reported the same error, I fixed it too. That, my friend brought the cascading errors to an end. My fears had got the best of me. Well thanks, very much for solving this mystery. I was afraid, I was the only one seeing the white elephant, but you made too much sense to ignore. Now I guess I have all six senses back hehehe. Bellow you can see the root cause, but it doesn't matter any more.

So the problem is the failure to recognize the displayed characters. Perhaps it used to recognize it as a string, but now with the update, it treats it like some imaginary number that doesn't exist. As such, it is not able to apply the function "LEN()" to a duration, as it is invisible. I haven't tried this yet, but concatenating the duration might return the string value and then you can take the length of that. It is easier for iWorks team to fix it, than having us do the work around; especially, since they introduced pivoting tables. I can't even attempt to try that feature, I my sheet is basically nonfunctional and I will be pivoting errors at that point, a big fail. Then from experience is best to fix this issue on a none business day. Expect to see people report this, once they start updating. I even tried the web version, and the error reflected there too.

yeah it worked enough, for me to get a significant amount of work done, given the benefit of the doubt; however, it looks like I am back to square one, as other tasks where due today, triggering the same problem all over again. So that rules out the accidental touches, entries, delets and pushes. Now that I think about it, this instance is a regular occurrence in the calendar cycle, and a necessary one too. it never gave that error prior to the last update. I may be have to reach out the developers team, but is it worth it I wonder. You see number made me fall in love with spreadsheets again, I love have they jazz up the boring excel. Numbers made working with numbers fun, something most people don't talk about. Basically I had created my own strip duration, I don't remember why I did that, perhaps I wasn't aware of the command at the time (may be I was trying to micro manage. Items I due when it gets down to zero days, but sometimes it reports zero minutes instead, so I was stripping away the "d" in "0d", the problems is "0ms" has two characters length minus two to strip away that one, as opposed to length minus one to strip 0d. Perhaps that's bad way, but I was only concerned about the results, which it gave me. I never though I would build on it, but I did for two years and file is huge, another reason I like how numbers handles large files. Anyway, now that I have your attention, there error is that it is returning zero for the length of the duration with this update. Regardless of the number of Characters, the length is zero. Funny how I bought a Mac pro to run numbers... not gaming. Initial was for video editing, but apple wiped away two terabytes of projects which ended my dealing with adobe, during a visit to repair a broken screen two years or three now. Numbers help ease that, and became a side job for me, in these times of uncertainty. Initially I felt saw the blame shifting towards my error, with questions and now halloween seem to be early, thanks to numbers. I gained trust with each update, being a little better, especially with speed, because I need the crunching power... I was looking to get an i9 Mac Pro to replace this 2016 Mac Pro. There is the story..

true, and I will recreate everything with time; however, even if the cell were formatted, it would report the error still as it does recognize duration as an object. The only way out is the later, using the standard way of stripping duration. For now it remains a bug, and forcing me to do just that (use the standard which I used much in recent times). Now with formatting, you'll be setting yourself up, it work best with displaying. I will definitely backup the number app against future updates.

Sunday would have been a perfect time to update, and not in the middle of work. usually nothing due on Sundays. Well, lesson learned, and your time was very much appreciated. Thanks for your help, I took less of a hit as a result; beside this instance in which I used it, is rare. It was a habit for RPL programming language.

I don't have a problem with getting 0ms, with the subtraction of two equal dates. I have learned to accept that, I think it's fine; as I have built around it. With the 0d, I basically assumed they where equal. I represented them both with equal value in one of my charts. I believe when you strip duration, the results is generally in days which often came in handy knowing that I didn't have to fiddle around with the unit. One could then add the d back with the concatenate function, something I use for search/lookup and that worked well too. So all not too odd yet.

Now the zonk, comes when you try the LEN of 0ms. I know I had test it out the first time I used it, hence it became a viable option. Until the update, and tracing the error to the root cause, just to find out the odd result of nothingness or 0, that never happens in programming.

Anyway, how it relates? I wound't exactly know. I know that pivot tables has a been big deal and missing action for many. So for the fact that it has been introduced, means that numbers may have a new pair of lens to look at table, to generate robust categories known as pivot tables. Perhaps somewhere in there it lost the ability to manually identify the characters, as the function may be reserved to automation. It's only my guess from a user stand point.

My initial response was otter-shock as I know I probably will be in for a long haul of fixing. Number is a power tool while remaining elegant. I have been please with the consistent results of the network of functions layered over the years of experiment.

Number has been the solution, as you can make it do just about anything when it comes to numerals.

Out of curiosity I decided to try it on the three major platform, and got a variety of returns. take at look at that screen shot bellow. Somehow it seems to be somewhat an issue, although they all returned some value except Mac numbers, with no value

the second test was to see how they handles concatenate functions with the result, Google sheet could not handle that at all, Microsoft brought back a length of 1 where I could visually see a full date's length.

apple was consistent with the length of zero, signifying no value...

anyway here you go with a stack comparison of Google • Microsoft • Apple

if we have to accommodate this glitch, then that would be a "new standard".

thanks for the concern.

So to answer your question, it's happening in more than one area, in multiple formulas, as long as a list is involved it could be a lookup, mode, sum you name it and it gone crazy. I am not sure where the question about the picture is going because I have more than a thousand instances across sheets and tables. These all worked before the update with results, and it just not possible to fix and then what would I be fixing anyway...

Personally my best bet would, be to revert (the installation) and see if the errors go away; is there a way to do that?