$scope.$emit not working while $rootScope.$broadcast does - angularjs

Question

Here's my parent controller where I listen for the event
app.controller("SectionLayoutController", function($scope) {
$scope.$on("sectionLayout.doAction", function(e, options) {
// do some stuff
});
});
And in my child controller I do this
$scope.$emit("sectionLayout.doAction", { someOption: "something" });
The event should be triggered in the parent controller but it isn't. I did check what the contents of my child controller's scope was (with console.log) right before emitting the event, and the listener for the event does exist in one of its parents.
Maybe it's because the child controller's scope is not a direct child of the scope where the event is being listened on? This is not really a critical issue because I can just replace the line with
$rootScope.$broadcast("sectionLayout.doAction", { someOption: "something" });
and it works fine, but I'm still curious as to why $scope.$emit isn't working (it did work at some point, it just stopped randomly).
(Angular version 1.2.16)

Answer 1

EDIT
The problem seems to be a bug in angular.js, not ui-router (it has already been reported and is scheduled for a fix in version 1.3 https://github.com/angular/angular.js/issues/5489). Using ng-transclude inside a directive seems to create a sibling scope for the directive, which makes this kind of hierarchy (with my first plunker example) : http://i.imgur.com/4OUxJSP.png.
So yeah, I guess for now i'll be using $rootScope.$broadcast
Ok, so from what I've found, this is a bug with ui-router (forgot to mention I was using that, oops).
If the ui-view of a child route is inside a transcluded directive, events will get stuck there. Here's a plunkr of that bug in action http://plnkr.co/edit/zgqAPiDbB2LUtwJaeHhN?p=preview. The Dummy controller uses the sectionLayout directive and the ui-view is transcluded (as you can see in dummy.html).
<!-- dummy.html -->
<div section-layout="layout">
<!-- transcluded stuff -->
<div ui-view></div>
</div>
<!-- sectionlayout.html -->
<div>
<p>Section Layout for {{layout.title}}</p>
<p ng-repeat="r in recieves">{{r.message}}</p>
<div ng-transclude style="background-color: #EEE;"></div>
</div>
Here's another plunkr where $scope.$emit does work, and the only difference is that the ui-view is directly inside sectionlayout.html instead of transcluded in the directive http://plnkr.co/edit/mVftwkZrynkF6KanE4zV?p=preview.
<!-- dummy.html -->
<div section-layout="layout"></div>
<!-- sectionlayout.html -->
<div>
<p>Section Layout for {{layout.title}}</p>
<p ng-repeat="r in recieves">{{r.message}}</p>
<div ui-view style="background-color: #EEE;"></div>
</div>
And here's a completely different plunkr where I don't use ui-router, but it's still the same thing. A directive is used in a parent where events are listened, and the child controller is transcluded in the directive. In this one, both $scope.$emit and $rootScope.$broadcast work fine, so it seems to be a bug with transcluded ui-views in ui-router. http://plnkr.co/edit/Iz5YcbMiTzrXQ6bJMskK?p=preview
<div ng-controller="ParentController">
<p>Parent Controller</p>
<p ng-repeat="r in recieves">{{r.message}}</p>
<div my-directive>
<div ng-controller="ChildController" style="background-color: #EEE;">
<p>Child Controller</p>
<button ng-click="tryEmit()">$scope.$emit</button>
<button ng-click="tryBroadcast()">$rootScope.$broadcast</button>
</div>
</div>
</div>
I'll report this bug on their github page