NS_E_CANNOT_PAUSE_LIVEBROADCAST (0XC00D1B8E) — Fix in 2 Minutes

Yeah, I've been there — you're in the middle of a live stream, you hit pause, and Windows Media Encoder slaps you with NS_E_CANNOT_PAUSE_LIVEBROADCAST (0XC00D1B8E). It's not a bug, it's a design constraint. Here's how to work around it.

The Straight Fix

You can't pause a live broadcast in Windows Media Encoder. That's not a limitation of the software—it's by design. Live streaming protocols (like HTTP or multicast) don't support a pause-and-resume model because the encoder is sending real-time data to a server or client that expects continuous flow.

Here's what you do instead:

1. Stop the broadcast by clicking the Stop button or pressing Ctrl+Shift+S.
2. Close the session (or leave it open if you're reusing the same session).
3. Start a new broadcast when you're ready — click Start (or Ctrl+Shift+P).

That's it. No registry edits, no third-party tools. The encoder will reinitialize the connection to the server cleanly.

Why Pause Doesn't Work

What's actually happening here is that Windows Media Encoder uses a push-based model for live broadcasts. The encoder sends packets to a Windows Media Services server (or a compatible endpoint) over protocols like HTTP, RTSP, or multicast. Once the broadcast starts, the server expects a continuous stream of data. Pausing would break the sequence — the server wouldn't know if the stream died or just stalled, and clients would hang waiting for more data.

The error 0XC00D1B8E literally translates to "It is not possible to pause encoding during a broadcast." The team at Microsoft left that message there intentionally. They knew someone would try.

Stopping and restarting flushes the encoder's buffer, resets the connection, and sends a proper "stream end" signal to the server. That's why step 3 works — you're not resuming; you're starting fresh.

Less Common Variations

Sometimes you'll see this error pop up in different scenarios. Here are the most common ones I've run into over the years:

1. You clicked Pause instead of Stop

Obvious but easy to miss. The pause button looks identical to the stop button in older versions of WME (like 9.x). Check the button label — if it says "Pause," you're clicking the wrong one.

2. The encoder is in "Push" mode but you're using a file source

If you're encoding from a file (not a live capture device) and broadcasting live, pausing still fails. The file may look paused locally, but the encoder is still trying to send data. Stop, seek the file to where you want to resume, then start a new broadcast.

3. Third-party plugins or scripts calling Pause()

If you're automating WME via COM or a script, you might be calling IWMBroadcastEvent.Pause(). That method raises this exact error. The fix is to call Stop() and then Start() instead.

// VBScript example — wrong:
encoder.Pause()  ' raises 0XC00D1B8E

// VBScript example — correct:
encoder.Stop()
encoder.Start()

4. The server disconnected and WME entered a paused state

Rare, but if your broadcast drops unexpectedly (network blip), WME might show as "paused." You can't unpause it. Stop, verify the server is reachable, then start again.

Prevention

This error won't bite you if you keep one rule in mind: never use the pause button during a live broadcast. It's not there for that purpose. The pause button is for local file encoding or archiving only.

If you need to temporarily stop sending video (for a break, ad, or technical glitch), stop the broadcast completely. Your clients will see the stream end. When you restart, they'll reconnect. That's the only reliable way.

For long-running events (like all-day conference streams), consider splitting the broadcast into multiple shorter sessions. Stop and restart every hour or two. That also gives you a clean log file and avoids memory leaks in older WME versions (which I've seen crash after 4+ hours of continuous encoding).

One more thing: if you're using Windows Media Encoder 9 Series on Windows 7 or later, you might also notice the error appears if you try to pause while encoding from a capture device (like a webcam or capture card). The device itself may not support pause. Same fix — stop and restart.

Short version: Stop, don't pause. It's not a bug, it's how live streaming works.