Stroke Path not following path line

[joemoritis]

Photoshop used to follow the path lines exactly with the path in the middle when I would select "Stroke Path" but now it randomly decided to start work funny its chooses to follow the path on one side then randomly start following it on the other and where paths ends it will create a hook or stop short.

It did trace the path correctly once before now I'm not sure why it is doing this.. I spent a good amount of time making this pen path and don't want to start over.. also affraid if I do it all over I will encounter the same problem.

Any Suggestions on what the problem could be?
*note* I tried deleting the Adobe Photoshop Settings file and that did not help

The path is saved as a vector mask.

[Steve]

Before you stoke the path open the properties of whatever tool you're going to use, I assume the brush, and make sure all the settings are set properly.

[joemoritis]

I did that using Pencil actually 5 px 100% hardness, but even if I change the settings or use the brush instead I will get the same results just with thicker or thinner lines but where its still not following the path correctly

[Steve]

Not just hardness and size, the settings here too.



And make sure Scattering is unchecked

[joemoritis]

Scattering was unchecked and I tried changing the other options in there too with no luck.
Below are the problems I am having:

1 and 2 show the problem using different brush settings.

3 shows a zoomed in portion of what I meant by it is creating hooks at end points

4 shows it zoomed in how its following one side of the path and suddenly switching over to the other side instead of stroking in the center of the path

If you look closely you can see that the path is not jagged so I don't understand why its doing this, it used to follow the path perfectly.

[Steve]

Hmm.

You said you "succesfully" reset your preferences file?

[joemoritis]

yea I deleted the preference file with no problems but it did not fix anything.

I found a temporary fix for my problem its not perfect but atleast I can finish what I was doing.

Basically I ended up stroking the path smaller then I wanted then using the magic wand tool with a lower tolerance so it would highlight all the lines but smooth out the errors. Then painted black over it and pressed delete. I now have about the thickness of the line I wanted but I still don't know why the problem was happening but I think I found that it only happens after making it into a vector mask.

[Steve]

I'm glad you found a work around Joe.
That's an odd problem and I'm out of ideas.

[joemoritis]

Thanks for trying to help me anyway, much appreciated.