Custom Comment Form

been through that but it’s not helping

my theme was using the comment-template.php file and now it is using the wp-content\theme-compat\comments.php and I have no idea why, i can customize the fields but can’t get the form to switch back to using the right file

that was it, someone had changed the parent theme file
(shakes head – always looking for the big mistakes never the obvious)
thanks

@dalincster

the wp functionality allows you to create custom fields

to create custom input fields I added this to my theme functions.php

//custom comment fields
// the po is related to my theme name
function po_custom_comment_fields($fields)
{
  global $post;
// i didn't want the default fields so i remove them here
	$fields['author'] = '';
	$fields['email'] = '';
    $fields['url'] = '';
// begin custom fields
    $fields['firstname'] = '' . '<label for="firstname">' . __( 'First Name' ) . '</label> ' .
      '<input id="firstname" name="firstname" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['firstname'] ) . '" size="30" /><span class="required">*</span>';
	$fields['lastname'] = '' . '<label for="lastname">' . __( 'Last Name' ) . '</label> ' .
      '<input id="lastname" name="lastname" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['lastname'] ) . '" size="30" /><span class="required">*</span>';

	$fields['location'] = '' . '<label for="location">' . __( 'Location' ) . '</label> ' .
      '<input id="location" name="location" type="text" value="' . esc_attr( $commenter['location'] ) . '" size="30" /><span class="required">*</span>';

// add all the fields created above in to a new array and return the new array
    $fields = array( $fields['author'], $fields['email'], $fields['url'], $fields['firstname'], $fields['lastname'], $fields['location'] );
  return $fields;
}

add_filter( 'comment_form_default_fields', 'po_custom_comment_fields' );

to save the fields

add_action ('comment_post', 'add_meta_settings', 1);
function add_meta_settings($comment_id) {
	add_comment_meta($comment_id, 'firstname', $_POST['firstname'], true);
	add_comment_meta($comment_id, 'lastname', $_POST['lastname'], true);
	add_comment_meta($comment_id, 'location', $_POST['location'], true);
}

there may be a better way, Chip Bennett, above, would probably be more qualified to give input on that, but this was what I did and it works for what i needed to do.
I might not be the best source for this, this is my first WP project in about 3 years