Socket.io broadcast to room not working in socket.io v.0.9.13

socket.broadcast.to(newroom).emit('updatechat', 'SERVER', socket.username+' has joined this room');

is not hitting the client side. I can only see message from:

socket.emit('updateActivity', 'SERVER', 'you have CONNECTED to '+ socketEntity.roomName);

Did I do something wrong with socket.join()?

I also tried to give the broadcast event a different name instead of updateActivity, but it won't work either.

There is no mention in the log output about the broadcast emit at all.

Question Update:

I found a solution that if I replace broadcast.to() to the following snippet, it would work:

socket.get(socketEntity.roomId, function (error, room) {
   io.sockets.in(room).emit('updateActivity', 'SERVER', 'you -joined- this group '+ socketEntity.roomName);
});

But I don't know why that is the case at the moment...so somehow the room parameter for io.sockets.in() above isn't the same as the string socketEntity.roomId?

Original Code:

Server:

io.sockets.on ('connection', function (socket){
    socket.on('joinRoom', function(socketEntity){
        socket.join(socketEntity.roomId);
        socket.emit('updateActivity', 'SERVER', 'you have CONNECTED to '+ socketEntity.roomName);
        socket.broadcast.to(socketEntity.roomId).emit('updateActivity', 'SERVER', 'you -joined- this room'+ socketEntity.roomName);
    });
});

Client:

HTML:

<ul id="activityList" class="dropdown-menu"></ul>

JavaScript:

$(document).ready(function(){
    var socketEntity = {roomId:sampleRmId, roomName: "sample room"}
    socket.emit('joinRoom', socketEntity);


    socket.on('updateActivity', function (username, data){
        $('#activityList').prepend('<li><a href="#"><div>'+ data +'</div></a></li>');
    });
})