._visible=1; isnt working....Please help!

I have a clip which is basically a set of button clips. When a button is clicked it fades (i used the ._alpha property) and finally when its 0 alpha, it removes itself (by using _visible=0 property). It works perfectly. Now when another button is clicked. I wanted the button which is currently not visible to restore its visibility. But using _visible=1; just isnt doing it (pastbutton._visible=1;). I tried a lot of trouble shooting, trace shows that the correct button path of the last invisible button is stored in pastbutton. But still when the next line says pastbutton._visible=1 still it doesnt restore the target button which is stored in the pastbutton variable.

Can someone help me please ?