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The Problem

At startup, GDSLAB displays a message saying that the HASP security dongle was not found.

Make sure the dongle is not an expired timed dongle. Timed dongles are black whereas regular dongles are purple.

The Solution

1. Swap USB Port

Close GDSLAB and confirm that the dongle is plugged into a USB port on the PC and its red light is turned on.

  • If it is not, plug in the dongle and run GDLAB,

  • If it is, then plug it into a different USB port.


Run GDSLAB, if the dongle is recognized and you no longer receive the error then the previous USB port was faulty, or the driver installation was not finished and by connecting it to a different port Windows recognized the new device and finished installing its driver.

Two things that will not work with the HASP dongle:

  1. Having more than one GDS dongle plugged in at once

  2. You cannot use Windows Remote Desktop to login to the PC as the HASP driver will block the connection to the dongle to prevent the dongle being shared over the network

If the error message persists continue to the next step.

2. Re-install the HASP dongle drivers

For this step the following conditions need to be met:

  • The account used has full administration privileges for the computer, with absolutely no restrictions. Otherwise, the drivers will not install correctly and may even become locked,

  • The dongle is NOT connected to the PC during the installation

For Windows versions older than Windows 10 it may be necessary to manually delete the HASP driver from Windows Device Manager before starting this step.

In order to reinstall the drivers, we need to rerun the GDSLab installation. Find your GDSLab USB/CD and follow the steps below:

  • Unplug the dongle and restart the PC.

  • Run the GDSLAB installer and tick all the options (excluding AdvCore drivers if running Windows 8 or later).

  • Once the installation is finished plug the dongle to the PC.

  • Wait a few seconds, you should hear the Windows sound indicating that a device was plugged into a USB port and Windows will finish the background installation of the drivers.

  • Run GDSLAB, the dongle should be recognized now.

If you are still having issues, please proceed to the next step.

3. Possible issues with the computer USB drivers

There were a few issues reported in 2022 after a particular Windows update. This update will make the License Dongle unusable and unrecognised on the computer.

Please follow the steps below:

  • Download the following archive by pressing the upper right button: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1N6Pqq1JCyI3nLncCmsny8gvfcOHcZYr5/view

  • Unzip (or extract the archive) and move the folder (Sentinel_LDK_Run-time_cmd_line) to the C drive

  • Close GDSLAB

  • Unplug your license dongle

  • Press the windows/start button on your keyboard (or lower left corner button) and write CMD, open the application as administrator

  • Copy the line below and paste it in the CMD window you opened earlier

c:\Sentinel_LDK_Run-time_cmd_line\haspdinst -kp -r -fr -v -purge

  • This should remove the currently installed driver

  • Restart your computer

  • Press the windows/start button on your keyboard (or lower left corner button) and write CMD, open the application as administrator

  • Copy the line below and paste it in the CMD window you opened earlier

c:\Sentinel_LDK_Run-time_cmd_line\haspdinst -i -kp -fss -ld

  • This should install the correct version of the driver

  • Restart your computer

  • Plug in the license dongle and run GDSLab

These instructions are available in .pdf form in Software Boiler Plate No. 151

If you are still having issues, please proceed to the next step.

4. Re-register the HASP library

Unplug the dongle and unregister the file GDS_Hasp.dll located in C:\GDSLAB\Plug-ins

Once this is done re-register the file.

For more information on how to register/unregister dll files please refer to the article below:

How can I register or unregister dll files for GDSLAB or GDSLAB Reports?

Once this has been done plug in the dongle and run GDSLAB. If the dongle is still not recognized at this point you may not have the necessary access permissions in your machine. Please bear in mind that even some Windows user accounts with full access can be limited by default admin restrictions. Contact your IT support to confirm this situation. It may be required to use the original administrator account to properly install these drivers, depending on local machine restrictions.

If you are still having issues, please contact us by following the linkhttps://gdsinstruments.kayako.com/en-us.

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