Polling does not get sent to full URL

[hardysabs2]

"socket.io": "^4.4.1",

node 14.19

I am connecting like this...

const io = require("socket.io-client");
...
theSocket = io.connect("/api", {
query: { token: await getToken() }
});

  theSocket.on("connect", function () {

...

The API server is running soxket.io with ExpressJS and all regular http requests to /api are being served fine.

But socketio polling is being sent to just the domain and gets this error...

https:///socket.io/?token=eyJhbGciOiJSetc&transport=polling&t=Nz9ZCm4 404 (Not Found)

Why is it not going to

https:///api/socket.io/?

The requests are made via Apache.
In a previous supposedly identical environment we were just implementing...

  theSocket = io.connect("<domain>", {
    query: { token: await getToken() }
  });

where the API was just on and socket.io worked fine there.

Do you know how I get socketio to connect to the right place?

Thank you.