Jane, i may just guess in concern of the logic reason to this error, but i got to suppose it is correlated with this Intentional Malfunction of ID processing.
As mentioned at linked feature request, such stuck at Needs ID treatment is the least trouble perhaps caused by that. Many obss. stay at high taxonomic ID level, as e.g. “Vascular Plants” since suppressing of single infraspecific IDs.
So this !NEEDS TO BE CORRECTED! but not discussed without any solution.