Inner Join Relation Without Together

hello,

i am trying to filter products by category using a scope and i do that by inner joining the categories
the problem is it only works when i turn together on, which messes up pagination

i recall doing that without a problem
also tried using 'on'=> instead of 'condition'=> inside the with() definition, works pretty much the same only the latter is slower db-wise i think

any ideas?

public function category($category=null)
	{
		if ($category) {
			$category = ProductCategory::model()->resetScope()->with('children')->findByPk($category);

			if ($category) {
				$categories = array($category->id);

				if (is_array($category->children)) {
					foreach ($category->children as $child) {
						$categories[] = $child->id;
					}
				}

				$this->getDbCriteria()->mergeWith(array(
					'with'=>array(
						'categories'=>array(
							'condition'=>'categories.id=' . implode($categories, ' or categories.id='),
							'joinType'=>'inner join',
//							'together'=>true,
						),
					),
				));
			}
		}

		return $this;
	}

ps. left joining products on a category is unfortunately not an option