Don't blame you a bit for needing to vent....I had that happen once and ended up taking my machine in for service, because I had tried SIMPLY EVERYTHING! Turns out that I really needed to make sure that my needle was full in the up position before threading the machine. I have a Janome Memory Craft 4900 and there is a push button that allows you to raise or lower the needle. I finally got a tech that realized that I wasn't using the button to make sure that the needle was in the right position before I threaded the machine. He explained that because of the threading pattern of the machine, if I didn't do that, a step (internally) would be missed. Haven't had that problem since and I'm in love with my machine again. :)