"Trying to access array offset on value of type null", exception: "ErrorException"

I'm using Laravel witch Vuejs, present the following condition which goes through the categories, the daughter categories and the products. The conditional works, but when displaying the data of the query it gives me the error of: Trying to access array offset on value of type null

The error gives me in: ->paginate($request['pagination']['per_page'], ['*'], 'page', $pagination['page']);

this my function

function getProductsStore(Request $request)
{

    $active_categories = [];

    if(optional($request['query'] ??null)['active']!==null) {
        $active_categories = $this->findChildren($request['query']['active']);
    }

    if (!empty($active_categories)) {
        $categories = Category::whereIn('category_id', $active_categories)
            ->with('childrenRecursive')
            ->withCount('products', 'children')
            ->get();
    } else {
        $categories = Category::with('childrenRecursive')
            ->withCount('products', 'children')
            ->whereNull('category_id')
            ->get();
    }
    
    Log::info('in getprods');
    Log::info(print_r($active_categories, true));

    $pagination = $request->query('pagination');
    $prod = Product::where('is_active', true)
        ->with(['categories', 'brand', 'images' => function ($query) {
            $query->where('default', true);
        }])
        ->Order($request)
        ->BrandStore($request)
        ->CategoryStore($request, $active_categories)
        ->paginate($request['pagination']['per_page'], ['*'], 'page', $pagination['page']);


    return response()->json([
        "products" => $prod->toArray()['data'],
        "categories" => $categories,
        "page" => $prod->currentPage(),
        "pages" => $prod->lastPage(),
        "per_page" => $request['pagination']['per_page'],
        "total" => $prod->total(),
        "sort" => "asc",
        "field" => "product",
    ]);
}