Did you solve this?
Did you ever figure out how to solve it or did you replace the machine? This is happening to me too. It distorted the pattern on the screen (and on fabric) on one, does fine on some, and on others it looks great on the screen but does the gaps like you have too.
I did notice that when I use the hat hoop, it will try to bring the hoop down after a letter instead of up and the needle bumps into the edge, which makes it knock off course. Wasn’t sure if you’d fixed your problem bc it’s making me crazy!