multistate buttons remembering there state.

I have several multistate buttons or movies that exist on different frames of a timeline(main movie).
When different events happen I move the timeline back and forth between the frames of the main movie.
In the buttons that exist on the frames of the main movie I have given them a property of state. This is checked on the onenterframe and the little button movie is driven to its right state so as to be accurate when next shown. This is not happening. Either the variable is trashed when the main movie is moved to a frame where the button no longer exists or I am attacking this the wrong way.
It would be nice if the code to remember the state was in the button its self so I could easily add buttons as I go with a generic peice of code inside.

Please help
cheers

what is your code? or may be the file