COUNTA or COUNTIF to count cells -mix of numbers and alphanumerics

Hi,

I'm trying to count cells with numbers and alphanumerics but COUNTA seems to only count cells with letters.
I just need a hand to point me in the right direction.
Any help is appreciated!

Attached example where Instances of Code column counts the number of cells for B, D, and F

Thanks

It looks like the issue was the Blank Cells - there was an IFERROR formula which left a blank in a cell but it Excel didnt see it at blank. Those blank cells were being counted so COUNTA didn't work. I did a find/replace for all blank cells and replaced it with a unique word not used in the sheet and replace that with find/replace to blank out the cells. Now COUNTA works.

thanks!