Yii2 ValidatePage to give empty output on wrong page number - yii

Question

I am trying to fetch a list of products from a table using my yii2 app and send it accross as a json to lazyload on scroll from the front end. I am using the searchmodel class. Now when data ends, last page data is being send again, i.e., if i have hundred records, the calls for page numbers above 5 would repeatedly send the same data as page number 4. How do i prevent it.
PS: Confused about the usage of the validatePage flag reading the documentation.
Here is my code of the controller.
public function actionAjaxIndex()
{
$searchModel = new productsS();
$response = (object) ['status' => 0];
$dataProvider = $searchModel->search(Yii::$app->request->queryParams);
$response->status = 1;
$response->data = array();
foreach($dataProvider->models as $row){
foreach($row as $key=>$value){
$customerDetail[$key] = $value;
}
array_push($response->data, $customerDetail);
}
return json_encode($response);
}
Can somebody help with the best possible solution to go ahead.

Answer 1

You need to disable $validatePage for your data provider. This setting overwrites page if it is outside of range (so if you have 4 pages of records, but you request 5th page, pagination will automatically switch to 4th page - every page outside of range will display results for last page).
$dataProvider = $searchModel->search(Yii::$app->request->queryParams);
$dataProvider->pagination->validatePage = false;