NS_E_STALE_PRESENTATION (0XC00D1389) — streaming media description outdated
You'll see this in Windows Media Player or Internet Explorer when a streaming media playlist gets cached and then changed on the server. The fix is clearing the cache or refreshing the metadata.
When you see this error
You're streaming a radio station or video feed through Windows Media Player (or an app that uses the WMP engine, like old Internet Explorer). The stream worked fine yesterday, but today it just fails with NS_E_STALE_PRESENTATION (0XC00D1389). The culprit here is almost always a cached playlist file — typically an ASX or WAX file — that the server updated, but your local machine still holds the old version. The error message literally says "the streaming media description is no longer current."
Root cause
Windows Media Player caches the metadata for streaming media — the playlist, the URLs, the codec info — so it doesn't have to re-download it every time you open the stream. That's normally a good thing. But when the server changes that metadata (new URLs, different bitrate options), your cached copy becomes stale. The player tries to use the old description, the server rejects it, and you get 0XC00D1389. This is especially common with live radio stations that rotate their stream URLs every few hours, or with multicast streams that expire.
The fix
Don't bother reinstalling Windows Media Player or running SFC /SCANNOW — that rarely helps here. The fix is simple: clear the cache.
- Close all media players — WMP, IE, Edge, any app that could be holding the cache file open.
- Clear the WMP cache — Open Windows Media Player, go to
Organize > Options > Player. Under "Internet settings", click Clear history. This wipes the cached media URLs and metadata. While you're there, uncheck "Save recently played items" if you don't need it — saves you this headache later. - Delete the local cache folder — Press
Win + R, type%userprofile%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Media Player, hit Enter. Delete everything inside this folder. Don't delete the folder itself, just the contents. This forces WMP to rebuild its database from scratch. - Flush DNS cache — Open Command Prompt as admin (
Win + X > Terminal (Admin)) and runipconfig /flushdns. Sometimes a DNS change on the stream server's side is what made the description stale. - Restart WMP and try the stream again. It should pull the fresh metadata from the server.
Still failing?
If the error persists after clearing the cache, the stream itself might be broken. Test the URL in a browser or VLC player to confirm. If VLC loads it fine, the issue is WMP-specific — try disabling the WMP network proxy in the registry (HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\MediaPlayer\PlayerUpgrade, set "ProxyHTTP" to 0). If nothing works, check the server's documentation for updated stream URLs — sometimes the old URL is just dead.
One last thing: if you're using Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 7 or 8.1 to access a media site that's been updated to use HTTPS-only, you'll get this error because IE's media engine can't handle the redirect. Use a modern browser or update to Windows 10+.
That's it. Nine times out of ten, deleting the cache folder does the trick. Save yourself the support call and try it first.
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