I don't succeed in selecting a group of faces and deselect with Checker Deselect.
Consider a cube that has been looped cut ...
Select all the faces of the top side ...
Click on Checker Deselect ...
What does it mean ?
(I am using v2.78c)
You need to have an active face. This is a way to give an indication to Blender in order to control which faces will be kept selected:
If no face is active, you obtain the message mentioned in your question.