diff --git a/src/components/structures/RoomView.js b/src/components/structures/RoomView.js
index 0cd8a95938..803707daf6 100644
--- a/src/components/structures/RoomView.js
+++ b/src/components/structures/RoomView.js
@@ -179,6 +179,10 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
             'joining?', newState.joining,
         );
 
+        // finished joining, start waiting for a room and show a spinner. See onRoom.
+        newState.waitingForRoom = this.state.joining && !newState.joining &&
+                        !RoomViewStore.getJoinError();
+
         // NB: This does assume that the roomID will not change for the lifetime of
         // the RoomView instance
         if (initial) {
@@ -218,23 +222,19 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
         // which must be by alias or invite wherever possible (peeking currently does
         // not work over federation).
 
-        // NB. We peek if we are not in the room, although if we try to peek into
-        // a room in which we have a member event (ie. we've left) synapse will just
-        // send us the same data as we get in the sync (ie. the last events we saw).
+        // NB. We peek if we have never seen the room before (i.e. js-sdk does not know
+        // about it). We don't peek in the historical case where we were joined but are
+        // now not joined because the js-sdk peeking API will clobber our historical room,
+        // making it impossible to indicate a newly joined room.
         const room = this.state.room;
-        let isUserJoined = null;
         if (room) {
-            isUserJoined = room.hasMembershipState(
-                MatrixClientPeg.get().credentials.userId, 'join',
-            );
-
             this._updateAutoComplete(room);
             this.tabComplete.loadEntries(room);
         }
-        if (!isUserJoined && !this.state.joining && this.state.roomId) {
+        if (!this.state.joining && this.state.roomId) {
             if (this.props.autoJoin) {
                 this.onJoinButtonClicked();
-            } else if (this.state.roomId) {
+            } else if (!room) {
                 console.log("Attempting to peek into room %s", this.state.roomId);
                 this.setState({
                     peekLoading: true,
@@ -259,7 +259,8 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
                     }
                 }).done();
             }
-        } else if (isUserJoined) {
+        } else if (room) {
+            // Stop peeking because we have joined this room previously
             MatrixClientPeg.get().stopPeeking();
             this.setState({
                 unsentMessageError: this._getUnsentMessageError(room),
@@ -622,6 +623,7 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
         }
         this.setState({
             room: room,
+            waitingForRoom: false,
         }, () => {
             this._onRoomLoaded(room);
         });
@@ -677,7 +679,14 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
 
     onRoomMemberMembership: function(ev, member, oldMembership) {
         if (member.userId == MatrixClientPeg.get().credentials.userId) {
-            this.forceUpdate();
+
+            if (member.membership === 'join') {
+                this.setState({
+                    waitingForRoom: false,
+                });
+            } else {
+                this.forceUpdate();
+            }
         }
     },
 
@@ -1464,7 +1473,7 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
                                             onRejectClick={ this.onRejectThreepidInviteButtonClicked }
                                             canPreview={ false } error={ this.state.roomLoadError }
                                             roomAlias={room_alias}
-                                            spinner={this.state.joining}
+                                            spinner={this.state.joining || this.state.waitingForRoom}
                                             inviterName={inviterName}
                                             invitedEmail={invitedEmail}
                                             room={this.state.room}
@@ -1583,7 +1592,7 @@ module.exports = React.createClass({
                 <RoomPreviewBar onJoinClick={this.onJoinButtonClicked}
                                 onForgetClick={ this.onForgetClick }
                                 onRejectClick={this.onRejectThreepidInviteButtonClicked}
-                                spinner={this.state.joining}
+                                spinner={this.state.joining || this.state.waitingForRoom}
                                 inviterName={inviterName}
                                 invitedEmail={invitedEmail}
                                 canPreview={this.state.canPeek}