COUNTIF Trouble

Hello all,

I'm trying to use a COUNTIF function to tell me how many cells in a certain column have anything in them, so basically any cell that isn't a blank, I want in the count. I was using COUNTIF(A2:A1592,"*"), and it is returning 1590, which is not the correct count. I did a trim of the column, and made sure the sheet was in General formatting, but the formula still returns the 1590. Any idea what could be causing this and what the appropriate fix is?

Thanks,

Mike