Button's Hover state doesn't work after mousing over a Disabled button

I created an interaction with 8 clickable, transparent buttons on top of a spreadsheet graphic; each button sits on top of a column in the spreadsheet (shown on the base layer). I present a series of 6 question layers (one at a time). For each question, incorrect clicks change the selected button(s) to their Incorrect state (add a Red X graphic). Clicking the correct button for Q.1  (1) disables that button for the rest of the exercise (Disabled state adds a Green check graphic), (2) resets all other buttons to Normal, and (3) presents the next Question. (I used a variable to track which question is current and therefore which button is correct for each question.)

Each transparent button also includes a Hover state (an arrow pointing to the column), which works fine EXCEPT when you mouse over a Disabled button immediately before mousing over the button. The only way to see a button's Hover state is to deliberately mouse over anything other than a disabled button first. But there are 8 adjacent columns/buttons, and learners will want to move the pointer side to side, which means they won't see the Hover states of the remaining buttons and will miss the next correct answer.

I tried changing the Hover state to simply add an outline instead of showing an arrow shape, but that didn't fix the problem.

Has anyone else run into this?  Any ideas on how to fix it?