Play button issues

I just bought my first mpc 1000 used on ebay. It came with 128MB RAM and jjos 3.16. When i turned it on everything seemed to be in working order; I could load samples to the pads, play them back, peruse menus and c. but the play button and the play/start button didn't seem to do anything. I couldn't play back the demo song or record any sequences. After an hour or so of googling I decided the tact switches must be bad and ordered some. However, this morning after some more research I found that I am able to initiate the memory check mode by holding start while it boots up and if I scroll over with the bar select button and then press play/start the counter returns to the beginning of the song, so it appears that the buttons are actually fuctional.
I really am sorry if this is a stupid question but if anyone would is able to help me it would be greatly appreciated.

how does checking ram make a dead button respond?

It still doesn't work when in sequence mode, I can't record or play back anything. They only respond in non-playback/recording functions.

Have you tried installing a different OS? Load the Akai OS in there and see if you still have problems.

Have you tried resetting the MPC settings, holding down Erase when powering it on?

Thank you guys so much! Factory reset fixed it. I appreciate the quick responses.

The transport buttons were probably set to send MIDI Machine Control messages to the MIDI output, rather than to the MPC sequencer.