How can we remove the IB-trackable flag from an item?

We have an item that was set up to be IB-trackable. Years later, we now realize that it's a trivial item and we no longer want to track it in Install Base. Yet when we try to change the comms_nl_trackable_flag field in production, we're getting this error:

Install Base Trackable can not be updated since Onhand trackable exists.

Note 1520851.1 addresses this error message in the context to try to ENABLE this flag. We are trying to DISABLE it.

Any ideas how to resolve this error, and remove the IB-trackable flag from an item?

thanks,

Jennie