Reading files tends to show for loading Now Playing and/or the Filelisting. The more files that are in either the longer this will take. If the Library is empty it's likely it's the Now Playing that has many files.

What build? ...regular install or portable?

Sounds like your library is shot anyway, so why not try updating to latest build?
Completely new install, not over the top.

I started up 4.1.4 this evening to "Reading files...."

No files were loaded after waiting quite a long time...

I have to close MM with Task Manager to get it to close
I've tried to "cleanup" the database and remove the whole thing- still does this.

SO now I have an empty library and it won't re-index them and still sits at "Reading files...."

Win7 64 bit