Error: The connection to the hardware drivers could not be established

Due to a problem in the Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software version 20.2 and earlier, you may see the following error when running the Initialize Connections command in the Intel Stratix® 10 EMIF Toolkit.

Error: The connection to the hardware drivers could not be established.

To work around this problem in the Intel® Quartus® Prime Pro Edition Software version 20.2 and earlier, follow these steps:

1. Prior to opening / loading the Quartus project, launch the System Console tool from the Tools menu.
2. Once System Console has finished discovering, open the Quartus project from the File menu while System Console is still open.
3. Launch the Intel Stratix® 10 EMIF Toolkit from the Tools menu and run the Initialize Connections command.