Hugo v0.141.0 introduced a new try mechanism to improve error handling. This is a breaking change with older Hugo versions. If your site or theme uses this new try mechanism, the minimum required version of Hugo is therefore v0.141.0.
It may not always be feasible to upgrade to Hugo v0.141.0 or later. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to add backwards compatibility. Go’s template parser fails if you try to use a keyword/function that’s not available in the current running version (see this discussion).
As the author of the Hinode theme, I implemented a different approach that may helpful to others. I isolated all partials and render hooks that reference the new try mechanism. I then created a separate module that includes these files, but uses the “old way” (without try and .Value). Theme users can optionally import this module to make the theme compatible with Hugo <v0.141.0. The import mechanism (it should be imported first in the import order) ensures that the Hugo renderer uses the “old” files instead of the “new” files in the main theme.
Please refer to the module mod-compatibility for an example. Please note that Hugo gives a warning about minimum version requirements, but they can be safely ignored.