search suppressed and colour requested

I seem to have a continuous flow of a couple of items at a time being search suppressed. They are usually knitting patterns listed in the "books" category.

When I click on the fix items button I often get an error message but when I do get through I am asked for the colour a couple of times. I now enter multicoloured but it seems very strange that I have to do this to get relisted.

Any idea what is going on?