My struggles with this continue, and I have no idea what the cause is.

After some googling, it seems that there are a handful of possibilities, most of which I have ruled out.

My only lead is that I was occasionally able to get the program to function properly once, while plugging and unplugging the usbASP. I wonder if it is causing some sort of reset loop, or if it is a problem with Windows.

If I am unable to resolve this, I fear I will have to change hardware, which is not something I wish to do.

My trusty STM32's I use at work have never had issues like these.....