Buffer Tool Not Functioning as Expected

JustinJohnston

I have used the Buffer tool many times in the past without issue.  Today I ran the tool to add a 7-foot buffer to a polyline and the result is perplexing me.  The resulting buffer seems to be randomly offset from the line instead of being centered on it.  See screenshot for one such location. Instead of the buffer being centered, there is only 4.2' on one side and 9.8' on the other.  In other areas, it is nearly centered, but not quite.  I tried both the Buffer tool and the Pairwise Buffer tool with the same result.  Is this a bug from updating to 3.0?

 

danretired

what is the coordinate system of the map and the polyline?

If it is web mercator, open a new map, with no basemap etc and set the map's coordinate system to a better projected coordinate system (like UTM, state plane etc), add the polyline and buffer it and see if the results look normal.  Web mercator shouldn't be used for anything other than "looking".  Operations that involve distance and area are not well suited to it.