Fix NS_E_PLAYLIST_ENTRY_ALREADY_PLAYING (0XC00D14B4)

Windows Media Player or compatible app throws this when you try to play a file that's already active. Usually a stale process or a glitchy playlist. Kill the process, clear the cache, or reset the app.

What's going on?

This error pops up when Windows Media Player (or sometimes a media app that uses its engine) thinks the track you're trying to play is already active. You'll see it if you double-click a song while it's already playing, or when a playlist gets stuck after a crash. The code 0XC00D14B4 is the OS telling you, "I'm already playing this, stop asking."

Real-world trigger: You're listening to a podcast, you close the laptop lid, and when you reopen it, the player is frozen. You click a different episode, and boom—the error. Or you use a third-party app like MusicBee that hooks into WMP's codecs, and it leaves a ghost process behind.

Let's get you sorted. Try these in order. Stop when it works.

Fix 1: Kill the process (30 seconds)

Most of the time, the player is actually running in the background, and your click is just stepping on its toes. Open Task Manager (Ctrl+Shift+Esc), find Windows Media Player (or the app you're using), and click End task. Then restart it and try again.

If you don't see it in Task Manager, look for wmplayer.exe under Processes. Sometimes it hangs without a visible window.

That fixes it for most people. If the error comes back every time, move to Fix 2.

Fix 2: Clear the media cache and library (5 minutes)

WMP keeps a database of your media files. If that database is corrupted or stuck, it'll throw this error even for files that aren't playing. Rebuilding it is easy.

Close WMP completely.
Open File Explorer and paste this into the address bar:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player

Delete everything inside that folder. Don't worry, it's just cached album art and library info, not your actual songs.

Also clear the DRM folder in the same directory—just in case. Then restart WMP. It'll rebuild the library from scratch, which might take a minute if you have a lot of files.

If that doesn't do it, try resetting the app settings via the registry. Open regedit and go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\Preferences

Right-click the Preferences key and delete it. WMP will recreate it with defaults. This wipes your view settings, so you'll lose any custom column layouts, but it's a small price.

Fix 3: Re-register the player and check for corruption (15+ minutes)

If the error persists, the issue is deeper. Maybe a codec or a system DLL got messed up. Let's do a proper reset.

Step 1: Re-register WMP

Open an elevated Command Prompt (right-click Start > Command Prompt (Admin) or Windows Terminal as Admin). Run:

regsvr32 wmp.dll

And then:

regsvr32 wmplayer.exe

Restart the player and test.

Step 2: Run SFC and DISM

Corrupted system files can cause bizarre behavior. Run the System File Checker:

sfc /scannow

Let it finish—this can take 10-15 minutes on an older machine. If it finds issues and fixes them, great. If it doesn't, run DISM to repair the system image:

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

That one also takes a while. After both, reboot and try again.

Step 3: Reinstall the app if you're using a third-party player

If you're not using stock WMP, uninstall your media player completely (using Revo Uninstaller or the built-in uninstaller), then reinstall the latest version. Third-party players that hook into WMP sometimes leave registry entries that cause this exact error. A clean install clears them.

Why this happens (so you can avoid it)

The error is a state management problem. The player's internal queue thinks a track is active, but the UI doesn't show it. It's especially common after sleep/resume cycles or when you've got multiple instances of the player running. If you're the type to open a file from Explorer while the player is already open, you're asking for it.

Pro tip: Always use the player's "Open" button instead of double-clicking files in Explorer. That bypasses the queue logic entirely.

And if you're using a playlist, make sure you're not adding the same entry twice. Duplicate entries are a classic cause.

Final thought

This error is annoying but rarely dangerous. The process kill fixes 80% of cases. The cache clear fixes another 15%. The rest are system-level issues. If you've done all three and still see it, consider a Windows repair install—but I've only seen that needed twice in a decade.