Issues with prototype wires and micro interactions

Hi everyone! I hope you are all doing well and keeping safe 🙂

Right now I am trying to learn how to use Adobe XD for high fidelity mockup which includes linking certain elements to different artboards (pages) and micro interactions but I'm having two issues.

1. I'm having issues connecting a one-line text in the footer to the "contact us" artboard/page. One thing I notice is that the prototype wires are grey while the functioning prototype wires are blue. Does this mean anything? The overall footer is created as a group and is a component. Not sure if doing this affects the prototype wires. (See image)

2. I'm trying to create hover buttons and it functions well if I preview it from the cardboard that it is featured on. But if I select the homepage artboard as the starting page and then preview it, it doesn't work. (See video & link: https://xd.adobe.com/view/289d6638-d1d0-46a1-6959-8d5ccaaffbd8-5eac/screen/f3d3903a-b2d0-477f-9631-d41a4335a846/Web-1920-Contact-Us
)

Any suggestions to resolve these two issues will be greatly appreciated.