iTunes match grays out songs

I have had iTunes Match for about two weeks and still have not managed to get it to work properly. I have been on these forums searching for the answer, as well as other websites, and absolutely cannot figure out what the problem is. It's very frustrating because this program was supposed to make things simpler, not more difficult. Please, if you can help, leave a suggestion for me here.

Here is the situation:

- iTunes Match has successfully put about 8000 songs in the iCloud and those work well on all devices.

- BUT it is missing about 2000 songs, which are either ineligable (which that part is okay and I understand), or are grayed out. These grayed out songs cannot be played, uploaded, downloaded, or anything. I have no idea why this is happening, but it has stopped a significant portion of my music library from being accessible. Anywhere. These grayed out songs are gray on all devices.

- iTunes Match also deleted many songs from the playlists that it was supposed to be saving. I do have a backup (I am pretty sure...) of my iTunes library before doing iTunes Match, so if I have to I can hopefully recover the lost songs that way. I think they are still in my library and have just been removed from my playlists, but I don't know if they are the grayed out songs or the okay songs.

Since having these problems, iTunes Match has been turned off on every device except the main desktop iMac that the actual song files are on. I am wondering if the problem may have occurred when I first set it up, as my family got excited and we tried to start every device on Match at the same time. If that isn't the problem then I have no idea. Either way, I don't know how to solve it.

In trying to trouble shoot, I have done just about everything that I or the Internet could think of. Please feel free to leave a suggestion. Anything may help, it's just that nothing has yet. Thanks in advance!