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I downloaded a file vid1 that is in C:\dir1\ which links to another file vid2 in a subdirectory C:\dir1\dir2\ and it works if I move that file to dir1 (so both files are in dir1). I figure that it'll work as long as it's in the same directory or any subdirectory of dir1 but it also works if I move vid2 to C:\ or C:\dir3\ or C:\dir3\dir4..
So how does an MKV file look for other MKV file segments even when I move them all over the place in different directories?
It's not the container that 'knows' that, it is a player. And it is a good question how it managed to find the file in the different directory.
The only thing that the container does to help the player to identify the blocks is storing the Previous UID and Next UID for the files. It also stores the UID for the current file. So my guess would be that you have a player with some sort of 'library' capability, the player has scanned your drive and recorded the UIDs of the MKV files that it found, it then encounters the Next UID field in a file that it's playing and it will know where to look for the next one.
Like Volodya said its not the file but the player looking for files that have the same file name but a suffix that helps it to identify the correct order. In that case you have a number after the file name and the player knows file1 comes before file2. Many such players support alphabetic ordering aswell.
