This is extremely frustrating; I freshly installed v8.60 from MPLAB, just as you suggested t06afre, and the build STILL freezes right in the process of presumably "Executing", as it indicates. I don't get any results, it just remains at that point and won't continue. This must be an error with MPLAB itself, otherwise I would get a "BUILD FAILED" from the assembler. I don't know what else to do, I'm almost ready to switch to AVRs.

 

Well I finally found the problem, which is a huge relief, let me tell you!

Apparently the folder I was storing my assembly projects in was corrupt. After running MPASM.exe alone it gave me a bunch of directory errors because it couldn't locate the file. So, I made a new folder and the build's stopped freezing. Now they are successful!

Those of you who have this problem now know that it is most likely what I described above.

Thanks to everyone who tried your very best to help, I am grateful for your efforts.