Fix NS_S_WMPCORE_PLAYLIST_CREATION_PENDING (0X000D1102)

This error is maddening — I know

You're trying to play a song or video, and Windows Media Player just sits there spinning. The error says NS_S_WMPCORE_PLAYLIST_CREATION_PENDING (0X000D1102), which Microsoft's documentation vaguely calls "informational." Informational my foot — it stops your media cold.

I hit this myself on a Windows 10 21H2 machine after a system update. The fix is straightforward once you know where to look.

The quick fix: clear the media library cache

Skip all the nonsense about reinstalling codecs or running sfc /scannow. The real culprit is a corrupted playlist cache inside WMP's database. Here's what works:

Close Windows Media Player completely. Check Task Manager to make sure wmplayer.exe isn't still running.
Open File Explorer and paste this into the address bar:
```
%LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player
```
You'll see a bunch of files like CurrentDatabase_*.wmdb and FolderPermissions_*.wmdb.
Delete every file in that folder. Don't worry — these are cache files WMP rebuilds automatically.
Restart Windows Media Player. It'll scan your monitored folders fresh and rebuild the playlist index.

That's it. The error won't come back unless the cache corrupts again (more on that below).

Why this works

WMP uses a database (the .wmdb files) to track every file in your library. When you add a new song or change a playlist, it schedules the update asynchronously — that's the "creation pending" part. If the database gets corrupted (from a crash, improper shutdown, or a bad file metadata), that task never completes. WMP just hangs waiting for a signal that'll never arrive.

By deleting the database files, you force WMP to start from scratch. It rebuilds the index cleanly, and that pending playlist creation task vanishes.

Less common variations

Sometimes the fix above doesn't stick. Here are edge cases I've seen:

Corrupted library folders

If WMP keeps rebuilding the same bad file into the new database, the error returns. Go to Tools > Options > Library and remove all monitored folders. Add them back one at a time, testing with a small folder first. I've traced this to a single corrupted MP3 file (bad ID3 tag) that would hang the indexing. Use a tool like MP3tag to clean large libraries.

Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service

If you use media sharing (like streaming to an Xbox), stop the Windows Media Player Network Sharing Service before clearing the cache. Open Services.msc, find it, stop it, then do the cache wipe. Restart the service after. The error can be triggered by a conflict between the local database and the shared database.

Windows 11 oddity

On Windows 11 22H2, the %LOCALAPPDATA%\Microsoft\Media Player folder might not exist if you never opened WMP after a clean install. In that case, open WMP once, close it, and the folder will appear. Then delete the contents.

Prevention

This error is usually a one-time thing after you clear the cache, but you can avoid future headaches:

Always close WMP properly. Don't kill it from Task Manager when it's busy scanning.
Keep your media files clean. Avoid files with corrupt headers — check new downloads with ffprobe or a tag editor.
Limit library size. If you have over 50,000 files, WMP's database gets fragile. I've seen corruption happen more frequently past 100K tracks. Consider splitting into separate libraries or using a different player like MusicBee for large collections.

That's it. You should be back to listening in under five minutes. Let me know if the error comes back — sometimes a deeper database repair is needed, but 9 times out of 10, this is all it takes.