Trouble with USBtiny burning bootloader

Error message below. Installing the drivers for the USBtiny with Zadig was successful. I tried a different ATtiny85 and I keep getting this. It appears AVRdude can’t use my programmer. Does that make sense?

Arduino: 1.8.19 (Windows 10), Board: “ATtiny25/45/85 (No bootloader), Enabled, CPU (CPU frequency), ATtiny85, 8 MHz (internal), EEPROM retained, B.O.D. Disabled (saves power), Enabled”

C:\Users\17073\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\arduino\tools\avrdude\6.3.0-arduino18/bin/avrdude -CC:\Users\17073\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\ATTinyCore\hardware\avr\1.5.2/avrdude.conf -v -pattiny85 -cusbtiny -B0.3 -e -Uefuse:w:0xFF:m -Uhfuse:w:0b11010111:m -Ulfuse:w:0xE2:m -Uflash:w:C:\Users\17073\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\ATTinyCore\hardware\avr\1.5.2/bootloaders/empty/empty_all.hex:i

avrdude: Version 6.3-20201216

Copyright (c) 2000-2005 Brian Dean, http://www.bdmicro.com/

Copyright (c) 2007-2014 Joerg Wunsch

System wide configuration file is “C:\Users\17073\AppData\Local\Arduino15\packages\ATTinyCore\hardware\avr\1.5.2/avrdude.conf”

Using Port : usb

Using Programmer : usbtiny

Setting bit clk period : 0.3

avrdude: usbdev_open(): Found USBtinyISP, bus:device: bus-0:\.\libusb0-0001–0x1781-0x0c9f

AVR Part : ATtiny85

Chip Erase delay : 400000 us

PAGEL : P00

BS2 : P00

RESET disposition : possible i/o

RETRY pulse : SCK

serial program mode : yes

parallel program mode : yes

Timeout : 200

StabDelay : 100

CmdexeDelay : 25

SyncLoops : 32

ByteDelay : 0

PollIndex : 3

PollValue : 0x53

Memory Detail :

Block Poll Page Polled

Memory Type Mode Delay Size Indx Paged Size Size #Pages MinW MaxW ReadBack


eeprom 65 12 4 0 no 512 4 0 4000 4500 0xff 0xff

flash 65 12 32 0 yes 8192 64 128 30000 30000 0xff 0xff

signature 0 0 0 0 no 3 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00

lock 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00

lfuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00

hfuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00

efuse 0 0 0 0 no 1 0 0 9000 9000 0x00 0x00

calibration 0 0 0 0 no 2 0 0 0 0 0x00 0x00

Programmer Type : USBtiny

Description : USBtiny simple USB programmer, http://www.ladyada.net/make/usbtinyisp/

avrdude: programmer operation not supported

avrdude: Setting SCK period to 1 usec

avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1

Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override

this check.

avrdude done. Thank you.

Error while burning bootloader.

Hmmmm…have you tried using “-F” to override? (avrdude mentions this in the error…might be worth a shot)