NS_E_DVD_NO_AUDIO_STREAM (0XC00D116B): Fix DVD Audio in WMP

What 0XC00D116B actually means

You pop a DVD into the drive, Windows Media Player opens, the video starts — and there's no sound. A few seconds later you get a dialog box with the hex code 0XC00D116B and the text NS_E_DVD_NO_AUDIO_STREAM. That string is Microsoft's internal name for it. NS_E means namespace error, DVD is the subsystem, and NO_AUDIO_STREAM is exactly what it says: WMP looked at the DVD's audio tracks and couldn't find one it knows how to decode.

This is almost never a broken disc. I've seen this error most often on clean retail DVDs playing on a fresh Windows 10 or Windows 11 install. It shows up the moment someone tries to watch a movie that shipped with Dolby Digital (AC-3) or DTS audio, because neither codec is included with Windows anymore.

Before you do anything else, test the file path. Copy the DVD's VIDEO_TS folder to a temp folder on your desktop, then try opening the .VOB file directly with VLC. If VLC plays audio fine, the disc isn't the problem — WMP is.

Cause 1: Windows is missing the DVD audio decoder (most common)

Up until Windows 8, Microsoft shipped an MPEG-2 and Dolby Digital decoder with Windows Media Player. Starting with Windows 8, they removed it. Windows 10 and Windows 11 can play a DVD's video because MPEG-2 video decoding is still there, but AC-3 audio (what most commercial DVDs use) has no decoder. That's the whole reason this error exists on modern Windows.

You have two clean ways to fix it. Pick one.

Option A: install the Microsoft DVD Playback app

If you're on Windows 10, the old Windows DVD Player app ($14.99 on the Store) still exists but Microsoft has been quietly pulling it in some regions. It's not worth the money in my opinion — VLC does the same job for free. Skip this if it's not already on your machine.

Option B: install VLC (the real fix)

VLC carries its own AC-3, DTS, MPEG-2, and almost every other DVD audio codec internally. No system-wide codec pack needed, no registry changes, no reboot. This is the fix I give to everyone.

1. Open a browser and go to videolan.org/vlc.
2. Click the big Download VLC button for Windows 64-bit. The installer is around 40 MB.
3. Run the installer. Accept the default options — you don't need to change anything.
4. When it finishes, don't launch VLC from the installer. Close it.
5. Right-click any .VOB file on the DVD. Choose Open with > VLC media player.

After VLC opens, you should see the movie playing with sound. If you hear audio now, the DVD and your drive are fine, and the problem was always the missing codec in Windows.

To play the whole DVD as a disc instead of individual VOB files, open VLC > Media > Open Disc > DVD > Play.

Cause 2: audio output device is set to the wrong endpoint

This one catches people who already had WMP working. You plug in a USB headset or an HDMI monitor, Windows flips the default audio device to it, and now DVD playback routes audio to a device that isn't powered on. WMP times out trying to negotiate an audio stream and surfaces the same error code, even though the codec is fine.

Symptom to look for: regular MP3s play fine through WMP, but DVDs don't. If that matches what you're seeing, it's the output device, not the codec.

1. Right-click the speaker icon in the system tray. Choose Open Sound settings.
2. Under Output, look at the dropdown labeled Choose your output device.
3. Pick the device you're actually listening through — your speakers or headphones, not the monitor or a disconnected Bluetooth headset.
4. Close Settings. Open WMP and try the DVD again.

You should hear audio immediately without restarting WMP. If you don't, go back and check that the device you picked shows activity in the little volume meter next to it when you play anything else — YouTube in a browser, for example.

If the correct output device doesn't appear at all, right-click in the Sound settings and enable Show disabled devices. Disconnected HDMI monitors love to hide here.

Cause 3: region or copy protection handshake is failing

DVDs from Region 2 (Europe, Japan) or Region 4 (Australia, Latin America) won't play on a US Region 1 drive, and WMP sometimes reports the audio stream error instead of the more accurate region mismatch. It happens when the drive has already burned through its region-change allowance — most DVD drives let you switch regions five times, then lock forever.

To check the current region:

1. Open File Explorer and right-click your DVD drive letter. Choose Properties.
2. Click the Hardware tab.
3. Select the DVD drive, then click Properties again.
4. Go to the DVD Region tab. You'll see the current region and remaining changes.

If the disc's region doesn't match and you've got changes left, switch it (Windows will warn you it's permanent). If you've hit the limit, you need a region-free player like VLC with libdvdcss, or the disc won't play at all regardless of codecs.

Copy protection (CSS) is the other half of this. Some discs use ARccOS or RipGuard, and WMP gets confused and reports a missing audio stream when it really means "I can't decrypt this track." VLC with libdvdcss skips around this. You can install it via the VLC installer option "Enable DVD decryption" or grab libdvdcss-2.dll and drop it into C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC.

What won't help

• Reinstalling Windows Media Player. It's a Windows feature now — you can't reinstall it in the old sense, and even if you could, the codec still isn't there.
• Running sfc /scannow. Nothing is corrupt. The codec was never installed.
• Installing random "mega codec packs" from a Google search. Most bundle adware and outdated filters that break playback of files that used to work. Don't.
• Updating your graphics driver. Video works. It's the audio stream that's missing.

Quick reference

Nine times out of ten, the fix is installing VLC. Once it's on your machine, you can stop fighting WMP over DVDs entirely.