I was just finding out how to use 'objects along path' by drawing a circle as a path and then placing filled circles around it. After I had selected 'place along path' the filled circles were placed around the circle but they all became slightly egg shaped and lost there perfect circle shape. Why would this happen?

This is the nature of bending shapes around another shape. You might want to try the extension Generate from path->Scatter... instead.

Thanks, will try.

Oh no, it didnt like that and an error window popped up(??)

The action seems to have random results. I opened a new document and tried again and it worked much better(??)

I got the best results when placing objects in the upper left corner of the page: XY=0

No, my objects still become distorted when applied to path, it's so weird.

I might uninstall and go back to an earlier version.

No - that doesn´t make sense - please upload an example file.

Thanks, how do I do that?

Save and either drag into the editor window where you type your reply or use the paperclip icon from the left and follow instruction. I'll look into it in a few hours from now.

So heres a very simple example. I drew a circle,converted it to a path and then drew a smaller cirle next to it. I then selected 'Extensions', selected both circles and the 'Generate from path'  The objects along the path are always distorted.

I have no clue where your issues come from. When it´s just for copies in a circular arrangement there is the Path effect Rotate Copies.

Here´s Scatter:

@Colstar If you updated from a previous version of Inkscape, you might want to reset the preferences.

It is common for pattern along path to bend shapes. The Scatter extension will not bend them. Odd that it is not working reliably for you.

(Also strange how Polygon's circles look egged.)

That is because the source was not 1:1 in H+W or got compressed by post-processing. I think I released ctrl key too early probably maybe perhaps… ;-) 
 

Thanks for the replies. I am even more baffled now but will try resetting the presets and see if that helps.

So I reset presets and tried again using 'scatter' but this is what I was presented with...

I have no clue why it´s not working for you. I´m under the impression there´s something unexpected with your Pattern circle. Can you select it and check Status bar and make a screenshot please?

Select "Stretch spaces to fill skeleton length" and this error disappears. (I think there's a bug in the extension.) 

Also the extension doesn't seem to work with shapes (rectangle, ellipse, polygon, etc.) so convert them to paths if necessary. [Path > Object to Path] or [shift+ctrl+c].

I loaded version 1.01 and it works perfectly so there is definately a bug with the lastest version somewhere (?)