NS_E_NO_REFERENCES (0xC00D006C) Fix: ASX File Has No Reference URLs

You're getting NS_E_NO_REFERENCES (0xC00D006C) and it's infuriating

You double-click an ASX file expecting music or a stream, and Windows Media Player spits back this error. I know—it feels like the file's broken for no obvious reason. Let's fix it right now.

The fast fix: check your ASX file's REF tags

Open the ASX file in Notepad (or any text editor—don't double-click it). You'll see XML-like markup. Look for a <REF> tag inside the <ENTRY> block. If it's missing, that's your problem.

Here's what a valid ASX file looks like:

<ASX version="3.0">
  <ENTRY>
    <REF href="http://example.com/stream.mp3" />
    <TITLE>My Stream</TITLE>
  </ENTRY>
</ASX>

If your file has no <REF> tag, or the href attribute is empty or points to a dead URL, that's the culprit. Add at least one <REF href="..." /> inside every <ENTRY>. You can have multiple <REF> tags per entry—WMP will try them in order until one works.

Common mistake: people write <REF>http://...</REF> instead of <REF href="..." />. That's wrong—<REF> is a self-closing tag with an href attribute. No content inside.

If you're using local files

Same rule applies. The href can point to a local path like file:///C:/Music/song.mp3 or just a relative path like song.mp3. But the <REF> tag must exist.

Why this happens

NS_E_NO_REFERENCES means the ASX parser found zero <REF> URLs. The error code 0xC00D006C is WMP's way of saying "I looked for links to play, and there aren't any."

This usually happens when:

• Someone manually created an ASX file but forgot to add <REF> tags
• A broken script or tool generated the ASX with empty tags
• The file was copied from a source that stripped the href attribute
• You're trying to play a playlist that was meant for a different media player (like WPL or PLS) renamed to .ASX

I've seen this a lot with old radio stream pages—people save the page as ASX but it's actually HTML. That's another trap.

Less common variations (and how to spot them)

Multiple ENTRY blocks, one missing REF

If your ASX file has several <ENTRY> blocks, and only one is missing the <REF> tag, WMP might still throw this error—or skip to the next entry. To be safe, check every entry.

URLs with special characters

Sometimes the <REF> tag exists, but the URL has unescaped ampersands or spaces. Example: href="http://example.com/stream?id=1&name=test". The ampersand needs to be & in XML. Fix it to: href="http://example.com/stream?id=1&name=test".

Corrupted file encoding

If the ASX file was saved as UTF-16 with BOM, some older WMP versions on Windows 7 or 8 misparse it. Save it as UTF-8 without BOM. Notepad++ can do this: Encoding > Encode in UTF-8 without BOM.

ASX v1.0 vs v3.0

WMP supports both, but v1.0 uses a slightly different syntax. If you're stuck, try changing <ASX version="1.0"> to "3.0". Most modern streams work better with v3.0.

Prevention: don't let this sneak up on you

Three steps to keep your ASX files clean:

1. Validate the XML structure before using the file. Any XML validator (like the W3C one or a browser's dev tools) will catch missing tags.
2. Use a dedicated playlist generator instead of hand-editing. Tools like Playlist Creator or even a simple script can spit out proper ASX with correct <REF> tags.
3. Test with a minimal file first. If you're setting up a stream, create a tiny ASX with one <ENTRY> and one <REF>. Confirm it plays before adding more entries.

And if you're copying ASX files from the web, open them in Notepad first—don't trust the download. I've lost count of how many "ASX" files turned out to be JavaScript redirects or HTML pages in disguise.

That's it—fix the <REF> tag, and NS_E_NO_REFERENCES disappears. If it still won't play after this, the URL itself might be dead. Check that with a browser or a tool like curl. Good luck.