thanks for your reply! I ended up employing the time old tradition of turning it off and turning it back on, and then it mastered right away...
also, if I could tack on another question, to ensure that the robot is still mastered every time I turn it on, I go to setup > master > EMT > standard > set mastering, and then see if it prompts me to master the axises instead of saying "no axises to master" (meaning that mastering saved from the last time.
However, it ALWAYS prompts me to master all of the axises again instead of saying "no axises to master". So, I have to master the robot upon every start up. By doing the checking process of that I just described, am I unintentionally reseting the mastering?
I know there is a set process to actually check the mastering, but it seems so much easier to just hit "set mastering" and see if it prompts me to master or not. However, I will obviously switch to the cited "check mastering" process if my way is causing the mastering to constantly reset.