Why is a rewrite rule in wordpress prevent pagination?

Question

I have a custom page that uses a rewrite rule. The "non-pagination" rewrite works fine:

add_rewrite_rule(
     '^brand-list/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/?',
     'index.php?pagename=brand-list&brand=$matches[1]&section=$matches[2]',
     'top'
);

basically a url like this /pagename=brand-list&brand=MyBrand&section=MySection ends up like this, /brand-list/MyBrand/Mysection

However, when using pagination the page number is never returned to wordpress so $paged on page 2 is still 0

add_rewrite_rule(
      '^brand-list/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/page/([0-9]+)?',
      'index.php?pagename=brand-list&brand=$matches[1]&section=$matches[2]&paged=$matches[3]',
      'top'
);

this url, /pagename=brand-list&brand=MyBrand&section=MySection&paged=2, ends up like this, /brand-list/MyBrand/Mysection/page/2 but still shows page 1. Checking the $paged value it outputs as 0, it should be 2.

If I removed the rewrite rules and /pagename=brand-list&brand=MyBrand&section=MySection&paged=2 is passed page 2 is shows and $paged value is 2.

With the rewrite rule in place, if you have over the page numbers you get this:

/brand-list/MyBrand/Mysection/?paged=2

Obviously the rewrite rule is the problem but I'm not sure what part I'm missing.

If I use this url:

/pagename=brand-list&brand=MyBrand&section=MySection&paged=2

with the rewrite all it results in:

/page/2/pagename=brand-list&brand=MyBrand&section=MySection

and works! but my url structure is incorrect.

----- edit ------

my current function

function rewrite_rule_brands() {
        global $wp_rewrite;
        add_rewrite_tag('%brand%','([^/]*)');
        add_rewrite_tag('%section%','([^/]*)');
        add_rewrite_rule('^brand-list/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/page/([0-9]+)?','index.php?pagename=brand-list&brand=$matches[1]&section=$matches[2]&paged=$matches[3]','top');
        add_rewrite_rule('^brand-list/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/?','index.php?pagename=brand-list&brand=$matches[1]&section=$matches[2]','top');
        $wp_rewrite->flush_rules();
    }
    add_action( 'init', 'rewrite_rule_brands' ); 

Answer 1

I changed:

add_rewrite_rule('^brand-list/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/page/([0-9]+)?','index.php?pagename=brand-list&brand=$matches[1]&section=$matches[2]&paged=$matches[3]','top');

to:

add_rewrite_rule('^brand-list/([^/]*)/([^/]*)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$','index.php?pagename=brand-list&brand=$matches[1]&section=$matches[2]&paged=$matches[3]','top');

Note the difference is /page/([0-9]+)? is now /page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$

seems to be working now.

Answer 2

This answer helped me thru a custom rewrite issue. I want to add that my case was a bit different in that I nested the category tree within the url structure
example.com/brand-list/brand-child-category/brand-grand-child-category/page/1 This would be like brand-list/nike/air-jordans/high-tops/postname

To get mine to work I had 1 call for the categories, then page, and finally the page number qualifier.

$newRules['brand-list/(.+)/page/?([0-9]{1,})/?$'] =
    'index.php?brand=$matches[1]&paged=$matches[2]';

NOTE: my rewrite coding is different but the basic structure could help others.