BUG: Python Package fails to load for some users, but not others.

[ialvata]

Pandas version checks

• I have checked that this issue has not already been reported.

• I have confirmed this bug exists on the latest version of pandas.

• I have confirmed this bug exists on the main branch of pandas.

Reproducible Example

# Code
import pandas as pd

df = pd.DataFrame({"Name":["Braund"]})

Issue Description

Venv

The venv is owned by root:root with 755 permissions.
Pandas version 2.3.1 (but also happens with 2.2.3)

Command

/opt/.venv/bin/python /home/user.name/python_scripts/sketches.py

Traceback Message

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/user.name/python_scripts/sketches.py", line 7, in
df = pandas.DataFrame(
AttributeError: module 'pandas' has no attribute 'DataFrame'

Note: In fact, regardless of the method used, it seems to always output the same error message. I have used <user.name> to work with other packages in the same environment without any problem. However, if I use root user, then all the scripts I've tried with pandas work as expected.

Expected Behavior

No error message, and creation of a data frame.

Installed Versions

-> Replace this line with the output of pd.show_versions()

Using root privileges,

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit : c888af6
python : 3.10.12
python-bits : 64
OS : Linux
OS-release : 5.15.0-142-generic
Version : #152-Ubuntu SMP Mon May 19 10:54:31 UTC 2025
machine : x86_64
processor : x86_64
byteorder : little
LC_ALL : None
LANG : en_US.UTF-8
LOCALE : en_US.UTF-8

pandas : 2.3.1
numpy : 1.26.4
pytz : 2025.2
dateutil : 2.9.0.post0
pip : 22.0.2
Cython : None
sphinx : 8.1.3
IPython : 8.35.0
adbc-driver-postgresql: None
adbc-driver-sqlite : None
bs4 : 4.13.3
blosc : None
bottleneck : None
dataframe-api-compat : None
fastparquet : None
fsspec : 2025.3.2
html5lib : None
hypothesis : None
gcsfs : None
jinja2 : 3.1.6
lxml.etree : 5.3.2
matplotlib : 3.10.1
numba : 0.61.2
numexpr : None
odfpy : None
openpyxl : 3.1.5
pandas_gbq : None
psycopg2 : None
pymysql : None
pyarrow : 19.0.1
pyreadstat : None
pytest : 8.3.5
python-calamine : None
pyxlsb : None
s3fs : None
scipy : 1.13.1
sqlalchemy : 2.0.40
tables : None
tabulate : None
xarray : None
xlrd : None
xlsxwriter : None
zstandard : None
tzdata : 2025.2
qtpy : None
pyqt5 : None

[jbrockmendel]

This is weird. The pandas import works but not pandas.DataFrame? What do you get from dir(pandas)?

[mroeschke]

Just noting that is very likely not a pandas issue. I would suggest.

1. Recreate your virtual environment with the packages you need (sharing these steps would be helpful to help diagnose)
2. Making sure you have no other files named pandas.py that your script is importing

[ialvata]

With a regular user:

Print Output

/opt/torch_venv/bin/python /home/ivo.tavares/python_scripts/experiments.py

dir(pandas) = ['doc', 'file', 'loader', 'name', 'package', 'path', 'spec']

pd.path = _NamespacePath(['/opt/torch_venv/lib/python3.10/site-packages/pandas'])

Possible Cause

I did an strace to the process for running the exact same script. The regular user gets permission denied when loading pandas.
It seems to be related to the environmental variable:
LD_LIBRARY_PATH and the order of the paths therein...