Fix NS_E_NO_PROFILE_IN_SOURCEGROUP (0XC00D1B67) Error

This error hits when Windows Media Encoder has no encoding profile set for your source. You'll see it when you start encoding without picking a profile first. Here's how to fix it.

You're in Windows Media Encoder, you've picked your source — maybe a capture card, maybe a file — and you hit Start Encoding. Instead of a progress bar, you get a dialog with NS_E_NO_PROFILE_IN_SOURCEGROUP (0XC00D1B67). The message reads: No profile is set for the source. Annoying, right? I've seen this pop up most often when someone loads a session file (.wme) that was saved on another machine, or when they've been tinkering with custom source groups in the New Session wizard and forgot to attach a profile to the new group before starting.

What's actually going wrong

Windows Media Encoder organizes inputs into source groups. Each group needs at least one encoding profile — the settings that tell WME how to compress the audio and video (bitrate, codec, resolution, all that). If a source group has no profile assigned, WME has no idea what output to produce. It refuses to start and throws 0XC00D1B67.

Think of it like a printer with no paper size selected. The document is loaded, the printer is on, but the job can't queue because there's a missing piece of setup. The fix is simply to assign a profile to the group that's missing one.

Step-by-step fix

Close the error dialog. Don't click Retry — it'll just pop up again. Click OK or Cancel to get back to the main WME window.
Open the session properties. In the main window, click Properties (or press Ctrl+P). The Properties dialog opens with several tabs: Sources, Output, Compression, Video Size, Attributes, etc.
Go to the Compression tab. This is where profiles live. You'll see a list of source groups on the left. Look for a group that has (no profile) next to it, or one that looks empty.
Select the group missing a profile. Click on it once so it's highlighted.
Pick a destination and profile. On the right side you'll see Destination and Profile dropdowns. Choose a destination (usually the same one as your other groups — for example, "Windows Media server" or "File"). Then click the Profile dropdown and select a profile that matches your intended output. If you're encoding for local playback, DVD quality audio and video (CBR) is a safe pick. For streaming, choose something like Broadband NTSC 700 Kbps.
Apply and OK. Click Apply, then OK. After clicking Apply you should see the (no profile) label disappear from the group in the list.
Start encoding again. Hit the Start Encoding button. The error should be gone and your session should begin.

If you're using a .wme session file

Session files carry source and profile information. If the file was created on a machine that had a custom profile installed (say, a company-specific profile), loading it on your machine won't find that profile and the group will come up empty. You've got two choices: install the missing profile on your machine, or swap in a stock profile from the Compression tab as described above. I usually just swap in a stock one — it's faster and you can always tweak bitrates later.

If you're scripting with Windows Media Services or the WME SDK

When you build an encoding session programmatically, you can hit this error if you add a source to a group but never call AddProfile on that group. Example in C# using the WMEnc SDK:

WMEncSourceGroup sg = new WMEncSourceGroup();
sg.AddSource(WMENC_SOURCE_TYPE.WMENC_VIDEO, "C:\\input.avi", "");
// forgot to call sg.AddProfile(...)
encoder.PrepareToEncode(true); // throws 0xC00D1B67

The fix is one line:

sg.AddProfile("Windows Media Video 9", "");

You can also load a profile from a .prx file with AddProfile("", "profile.prx") if you've exported one.

What to check if it still fails

Multiple source groups, one still empty. WME won't tell you which group is the culprit. Walk through every group on the Compression tab and confirm each one has a profile listed. A session with video in group 1 and audio in group 2 needs a profile on each group.
Profile file is missing or corrupt. If you loaded a custom .prx profile and the file moved or got corrupted, WME may silently drop it, leaving the group empty. Re-import the profile via Compression > Edit > Import.
Permissions on the profile path. Custom profiles stored on a network share can fail to load if the encoder service account doesn't have read access. Copy the .prx to a local folder like C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Media\Profiles\ and re-select it.
32-bit vs 64-bit mismatch. Windows Media Encoder 9 is 32-bit only. It runs on 64-bit Windows but custom profiles exported from newer tools (Expression Encoder, for example) may not be compatible. Stick with profiles bundled with WME 9 or exported from WME 9 itself.
Registry corruption of the profile list. Rare, but I've seen it. The profile registry keys live under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Media\WMServer\Profiles. Back it up first, then compare to a working machine. Don't hand-edit unless you know what you're doing.
Antivirus blocking profile load. Some AV products lock the profile cache directory during scanning. Test by temporarily disabling real-time scanning on the WME install folder.

Nine times out of ten, step 5 above is all you need. The error sounds scarier than it is — it's just WME saying "you forgot to tell me how to encode this." Attach a profile and you're back in business.