No Such Template Partials Paginator

Posted on Mar 23, 2026

It’s no secret that use Hugo for the content of this site. It’s a static site generator, which means I can have a lot of generated links, which are good and help enrich the content and the experience, but only at build time. That’s exactly what I was going for, so why bother with a full-on CMS? Hugo uses a directory structure, as well as Go templates, to build the site. There have been some changes to how Hugo manages this over the years, and I’ve been running up on some of those issues because of the runtime environment that I use, and it’s age.

Table Of Contents

What’s the deal?

./assets/hugo/hugo.exe new content/posts/hugo-no-such-template-partials-paginator.md
ERROR html/template:index.html:36:15: no such template "partials/paginator.html"

Yup, I’m getting this no such template error every time I run a command with hugo that will parse the theme. Why, you might ask? hugo version returns v0.157.0 for my installed binary, however my runtime environment uses v0.122 and, as one can imagine, there has been a game-breaking change in there. You might have read my previous post about how this functions, but the TLDR for how we got here is that my runtime environment on my local build box is out of date. That’s certainly an issue, but it’s one I’ll need to work around for the moment.

The Workaround

The easy workaround, is to cheat. I have the v0.122 binaries in the assets directory and I call them as such from the main directory:

./assets/hugo/hugo new content/posts/hugo-no-such-template-partials-paginator.md

You can get them from the Hugo Github releases page and just stash them in there. Yeah, they will take up some extra drive space but it’s trivial in the grand scheme of things. They say that the most permanent things are temporary, and that can be the case in several ways, but this is just waiting on the revamp of my homelab to become resolved. I need to rebuild the worker from bottom up, so that will be the time to update to the newest runtime environment, but I can also fix the site to build in v0.157, it’s just that it won’t build in v0.122 any longer.

Hugo has posted how Google Analytics should work on their page, so it’s not their fault. You can see that here. It’s the fault of me being very behind on my build environment, which is all types of risk itself (did you hear about CVE-2026-3497?) because of it being, basically, out of date.

OK But Why, Though?

There was a change in how the built-in template for Google Analytics works. It had to do with how the partials are defined. I now have an override for google_analytics_async.html in my partials directory, as well as a _partials directory with a google_analytics_async.html partial in it. There were a number of breaking changes in the release of v0.123, and this is where it stems from. The _partials directory is no longer used, to my knowledge, but it did still build correctly in the later versions, last I checked, so I won’t argue too much.

I’ve got my Google Analytics partial set in my footer, which appears on every page. That lives in layouts\partials\footer.html and I had the following in there:

{{ if not .Site.IsServer }}
{{ template "_internal/google_analytics_async.html" . }}

This wouldn’t build on v0.122 but it would on later builds. To quickly rectify the situation, I updated my theme by pulling from the git repository, and investigated further. The theme was updated to support the new templates, so I needed to locate the old files, which I found through a not-insignificant amount of searching, and added it to my layouts as partials\google_analytics.html. The newer binaries want to use the internal template, so I just commented that out for easy remediation later.

{{ if not hugo.IsServer }}
{{/* {{ template "_internal/google_analytics_async.html" . }} */}}
{{ partial "google_analytics.html" . }}
{{ end }}

This might come up for someone, so it’s helpful to have it here. The error comes up because the template crashes prior to processing the paginate partial, so it’s a little strange, but I’ve tracked it down to this. I’m also keeping it here for when I need to do the update, which seems like it might take a little while because of how out of date the build box is (it’s on Ubuntu Focal). And, as another note to myself, git submodule update --init --recursive will pull the files for the submodules. I bounce around between macOS, Linux, and Windows so my environments change pretty often, and sometimes I just need to pull that submodule down. It’s been a while since I wrote We All Live in a Broken Git Submodule and it’s starting to show.

In case you’re wondering, the if not hugo.IsServer statement checks to see if you’re running hugo server and avoids putting that partial in there if you are. It would result in weird and pointless analytics.

There’s a lot of big changes to the template system in Hugo v0.146 so I’m sure I’ll need to address that at some point, so stay tuned.

Hi, this post was checked with vale which is a content-aware linter. It was checked using the Microsoft style as well as some rules that I made. A summary of those results is below. More details as to how this was put together check out this post. This post had: 2 errors, 43 warnings and 23 suggestions For details on the linting of this post
 ./content/posts/hugo-no-such-template-partials-paginator.md
 1:1     suggestion  Try to keep the Flesch-Kincaid  marktoso.Readability         
                     grade level (8.22) below 8.                                  
 1:1     suggestion  You averaged 1.27 complex       marktoso.Kiss                
                     words per sentence                                           
 9:81    suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 9:122   warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 9:266   warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 9:313   suggestion  'CMS' has no definition.        Microsoft.Acronyms           
 9:351   suggestion  Verify your use of 'as well     Microsoft.Vocab              
                     as' with the A-Z word list.                                  
 9:395   suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 9:553   warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 13:18   warning     Don't use end punctuation in    Microsoft.HeadingPunctuation 
                     headings.                                                    
 20:6    warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'I'm') sparingly.                                            
 20:58   warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 20:170  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 20:199  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 20:307  suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 20:328  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 20:331  suggestion  Consider using 'earlier'        Microsoft.ComplexWords       
                     instead of 'previous'.                                       
 20:429  suggestion  'TLDR' has no definition.       Microsoft.Acronyms           
 20:442  warning     Try to avoid using              Microsoft.We                 
                     first-person plural like 'we'.                               
 20:462  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 20:488  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 22:4    suggestion  'The Workaround' should use     Microsoft.Headings           
                     sentence-style capitalization.                               
 23:91   warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 27:223  suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 27:362  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 27:393  suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 27:511  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 29:171  suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 29:189  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'me') sparingly.                                             
 29:198  warning     Consider removing 'very'.       Microsoft.Adverbs            
 29:213  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 29:290  suggestion  'CVE' has no definition.        Microsoft.Acronyms           
 29:294  error       Use an en dash in a range of    Microsoft.RangeFormat        
                     numbers.                                                     
 29:294  warning     In most cases, use 'from' or    Microsoft.Ranges             
                     'through' to describe a range                                
                     of numbers.                                                  
 31:4    suggestion  'OK But Why, Though?'           Microsoft.Headings           
                     should use sentence-style                                    
                     capitalization.                                              
 31:4    warning     Avoid using acronyms in a       Microsoft.HeadingAcronyms    
                     title or heading.                                            
 31:21   warning     Don't use end punctuation in    Microsoft.HeadingPunctuation 
                     headings.                                                    
 32:112  suggestion  'are defined' looks like        Microsoft.Passive            
                     passive voice.                                               
 32:183  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 32:206  error       More than 3 commas!             marktoso.TresComas           
 32:208  suggestion  Verify your use of 'as well     Microsoft.Vocab              
                     as' with the A-Z word list.                                  
 32:442  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 32:516  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 32:530  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 34:10   warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 34:45   warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 34:133  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 40:64   warning     Consider removing 'quickly'.    Microsoft.Adverbs            
 40:105  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 40:176  suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 40:186  suggestion  'was updated' looks like        Microsoft.Passive            
                     passive voice.                                               
 40:230  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 40:272  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 40:346  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 40:450  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 47:114  warning     Consider using 'before'         Microsoft.Wordiness          
                     instead of 'prior to'.                                       
 47:216  suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 47:216  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'I'm') sparingly.                                            
 47:249  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 47:556  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'my') sparingly.                                             
 47:606  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 47:648  suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 47:671  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 47:681  warning     Try to avoid using              Microsoft.We                 
                     first-person plural like 'We'.                               
 47:735  warning     Try to avoid using              Microsoft.We                 
                     first-person plural like 'we'.                               
 51:1    suggestion  Try to keep sentences short (<  Microsoft.SentenceLength     
                     30 words).                                                   
 51:131  warning     Use first person (such as       Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     'I'm') sparingly.                                            
 51:153  suggestion  Consider using 'discuss'        Microsoft.ComplexWords       
                     instead of 'address'.                                        
 53:40   suggestion  'was checked' looks like        Microsoft.Passive            
                     passive voice.                                               
 53:146  suggestion  'was checked' looks like        Microsoft.Passive            
                     passive voice.                                               
 53:184  suggestion  Verify your use of 'as well     Microsoft.Vocab              
                     as' with the A-Z word list.                                  
 53:210  warning     Use first person (such as ' I   Microsoft.FirstPerson        
                     ') sparingly.                                                
 53:284  suggestion  'was put' looks like passive    Microsoft.Passive            
                     voice.                                                       

2 errors, 44 warnings and 27 suggestions in 1 file.