<p>Error message:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>fatal: git checkout: updating paths is incompatible with switching branches/forcing</p>
</blockquote>

<p>How to get past this Git checkout error?</p>

By explicitly specifying “
```
git checkout HEAD $blah
```
” instead of just saying “
```
git checkout $blah
```
”, assuming you did want to check out a file.
You don’t say what you were trying nor what you typed, however, so no one can give you anything but a blind guess.