Hi @SoilRotifer, thank you so much for your response.
In the command that I used to trim my 16S primer sequences, I do include --p-discard-untrimmed. I originally used --p-front-f and --p-front-r to indicate my forward and reverse primer sequences in the command.
Right now, I'm experimenting using commands similar to what was used in this post:
(including forward and reverse primer sequences, in addition to the reverse/complemented forward and reverse primer sequences. I anchored the forward and reverse primer sequences with a "^", but did not do so for the reverse/complemented primer sequences).
Now it is just a waiting game while dada2 runs. In the meantime, I'm open to any other suggestions to fix this issue. Thank you for your time! 