Returning Meaningful Errors From C++ Function - Best Practice

Returning Meaningful Errors From C++ Function - Best Practice

I'm writing a class that has functions that can return multiple different
types of errors depending on what point the function(s) stop working. As
it stands now I don't have a formal idea of how to do this, but I've seen
something similar to:
bool thisFunctionReturnsError(type param1, type param2, returntype& return)
This works, it returns true/false if an error occurs and otherwise will
return a valid "returntype" into the return variable for the programmer to
use. But my question is - is this the best practice?
I found the below topic but it's in regards to C. I'm curious if C++ has a
better way to do this that doesn't involve exceptions (because they're not
standard).
What is the best way to return an error from a function when I'm already
returning a value?
Can anyone give me some advice on this? Thank you!