Figured it out.
I feel stupid lol...even though the code never entered those other test situations unless told to do so, there was an unused event condition inside both of those tests that made use of that exit variable from back when I first started coding this application. I had changed how I wanted it structured but forgot to remove those - so when I hit that exit, those blank events happened but they didn't compensate. Program flow didn't have to allow those parts to be accessed, since it was event controlled it just happened, and since it was in the same VI they weren't isolated.
Doh. So it was hung up in another part of the program that wasn't supposed to exist lol.
Thanks for the help!
LV7.1, LV8.5, LV2014/15/16