I'm trying to link from a main menu article text link to a hidden menu item (menu is called "hidden" and the page in question is an item in that menu). I'm doing this so that the hidden page doesn't show up in the main menu as a sub-link, but so that it is positioned under a top level item in the main menu.

Without getting lost in details that might not be relevant, my problem is that the URL that's generated from linking to this hidden menu winds up containing "k2-user-groups" in the address. ??? I have no idea why or how this is happening.

I do have K2 installed and use it primarily for the media manager. I was trying some stuff with user groups and extra user profile fields but deleted them all and disabled any plugins and modules that were used for that. I certainly was never using K2 user groups in any relation to this menu item.

When I try linking the page directly into the Main Menu, the URL is fine, but when I put the page into a hidden menu and link from another article to that page, that's when the K2 stuff suddenly appears. I've tried putting the hidden page as the only menu item in the Hidden menu, and I've tried using the Main Menu item (where the text link is, and which ideally is its menu parent) as an alias or as a text separator as the top level in the Hidden menu and then placing the hidden page as its menu child. Nothing removes the k2 reference other than placing the hidden page into the Main Menu system. However, this means it appears in the main menu system, which I don't want. (I hope this is making sense.)

Bottom line: this has nothing to do with k2 (I'm not using k2's items, categories or anything other than the media manager) and k2 should not be appearing as part of that URL.

I'm at a loss to understand how or why this is happening or how to fix it. I'm hoping someone here can help me.

The page with the text link is here:
utovs.com/en/alumni

The text link goes to this page (using the generated link):
utovs.com/en/k2-user-groups/criteria-alumni

Can anyone help? Many thanks.

In K2 there it is not possible to create a menu link towards a K2 group by default. So it is either generated from an extension that was left behind or it is an alias of a top level menu item.

Thanks for your reply, Krikor. It might relate to another extension. Did you mean a K2 or K2-related extension specifically, or just an extension?

My bet would be on a k2 related extension (hence the k2 related alias).

Thanks Krikor.

Once you find the culprit, please let me know.

Ha! Well I've disabled everything that I dare that mentions K2 and so far no change. We're aware of some Javascript problems with our template so it might be coming from there. If I find any information that will help anyone else with this problem, I'll definitely post it. :-) Thanks for your help!

I doubt it is a JS issue. JS will not (99% of the times) change the URLs. Double (triple etc...) check all of your menu item's aliases. If you are using an SEO/SEF extension double check its settings as well.

No SEO extension. I'm not sure what I'm looking for by checking aliases. Having "k2-user-groups" in the alias name? I looked through the aliases of every menu and every article on the site, deleted old trashed menu items and old articles. Still no change. What else should I be looking for?

If you used a quickstart package you should ask the template's developers about this.