Could not find USBtiny device

I have previously successfully used the Tiny AVR Programmer for several projects. However today (using the same laptop) when I tried to down load the sketch using the Programmer I got the error:

avrdude: Error: Could not find USBtiny devine (0x1781/0xc9f)

However at the bottom right hand corner of the Arduino IDE screen there appears the following:

ATtiny25/45/85, ATtiny85, Internal 1MHz on COM3 – which does seem to suggest that the laptop has recognised the programmer on a USB port. Looking at in the Arduino IDE window the Board is correctly set (ATtiny25/45/85) as are the Processor (ATTiny85), Clock (Internal 1 MHz) and Programmer (USBtinyISP), BUT the port is greyed out.

Checking the Laptop’ device manager shows that the programmer has been recognized as a Universal serial bus device but as FabISP.

The other action I have taken (having re-read the “tiny-avr-programmer-hookup-guide” was to re-instal the device driver using Zadig, but here no device is found and none listed in the dropdown dialog box

(The attached pdf document includes screen shots to illustrate the above comments)

USBtiny device not found.pdf (656 KB)
Help please! What can I do to get Arduino IDE to find the Tiny AVR Programmer?

I look forward to a reply, thank you

same issue. I suspect (but cant confirm) it started failing when arduino ide decided to do an update. I also tried installing arduino ide and the drivers on a second laptop, and it wont recognize the programmer. the IDE will recognize my arduino UNO compatible (ioinvent hero) board.