Updated CS4, code got borked

programming flash
1

I have two MC’s on stage,

MCmenu is a button array,
MCtext is a collection of text with frame labels. It’s labeled as MCtext

The menu buttons tell MCtext to play the frame label as the button clicked.

This used to work, but Flash was laggy as hell so I updated it. Now the same code returns #1009: Cannot access a property or method of a null object reference. at MCmenu/itemClicked()

function itemClicked(butn:Event):void {
  parent.MCtext.gotoAndPlay(SomeArray[butn.currentTarget.label);
}

I’ve tried just using a frame number, but still the same #1009
I’ve tried the Script Assist to target the MC on the stage:
using root.MCtext… still the same #1009
using this.MCtext… returns a #1010

Is this fixable? or is Flash just borked.