iTunes Match never finishes Step 1

I have read through a lot of threads but have not been able to resolve the issue I am having with my iTunes Match setup. I set it up originally, but it had a problem and I turned it off...now I am trying to set it up again and am having the same issue I had before, however it's not locking iTunes. I am running the latest version of iTunes. Any suggestions? I assume its a problem with one of the files but how do I identify the problem?

In advance, thanks for for your help!