error in JTAG server (error code 35) and autodetect (unable to scan device chain) Quartus 18.1

Hello fellow members,

I have a Max10 FPGA Evaluation Kit board (10M08SAE144C8G) which i want to flash via JTAG. For this, i have installed Quartus Prime (18.1 version) and have USB Blaster 2 as an interface. After connecting the hardware, the LEDs on the board are stable. When i execute autodetect on the programmer , i get a dialog box stating "unable to scan device chain . Hardware is not connected"(screenshot attached). In the hardware setup , i coulkd see the usb blaster variant is added but still this error occurs. Similary when i try to run the .pof file , the diagnosis show "unexpected error in JTAG server -- error code 35" (screenshot attached). 

I checked the driver and it seems the USB blaster driver is also updated. On the command prompt, it shows 

1) USB-Blaster variant [USB-1]

Unable to lock chain - Hardware not attached

Has someone encountered this issue before. Any help or suggestion would be highly appreciated.

The screenshots can be seen in the attachments.

Thanks.

Best Regards,

Ali