Pen tool hates me

For some reason my pen tool has been acting up
When I try to stroke a path it only marks the anchor points?
I reset the all the settings to default and it's still doing it
If someone could pretty please give me some advice it would be much appreciated. I'm sorry if it's something really simple, I'm new to photoshop and I feel like a kid lost in a welding room...
Grace

up in the top left corner of the top pallet of the pen tool, make sure you have "pen tool" box and the "paths" box selected,
and then go into the paths pallet, and select the path you want to stroke, and hold down "alt" or option on the mac, and click on the little hollow circle next to the black circle at the bottom, and choose from a few options and hit okay,
that should work

:( Didn't solve the problem
but I couldn't find the paths options
all I could find were the thumbnail sizes
I was thinking maybe it could be the brush?
It's a default one...but when I try to use the brush by itself
it isn't a continuous line it's like... lagging. instead of a line I get ..... .. .. . (not on the stroke path though that just dots the anchor points)
I really appreciate your help