Womandi... my suggestion is to always use the CUSTOM SPECIFICS. (2nd box). Ebay is doing away with the Item specifics from what I have heard so if you use those eventually you will have to change them all anyway. You can't use both, so you as far as I know have to go in and remove the lst box with is item specifics in order to get 2nd one (custom) to work right. Hope that makes sense.
I know this does not completely help with your issue, but may save you time later.
Vickie
http://stores.ebay.com/VICKIES-VARIETY