Trouble loading dll via ctypes

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I'm trying to load a dll via ctypes by doing this:

    cdll.LoadLibrary('/path/to/mylib.so')

But i'm getting this:

    /path/to/mylib.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or
    directory What am i doing wrong?

The dll in question is in a directory mounted via NSF, but no part of
the path/filename is a symlink. When i try code from the docs:

    cdll.LoadLibrary('libc.so.6')

,then all is fine.

I've also tried to set my LD_LIBRARY_PATH before starting Python,
checking it via os.environ, then doing the cdll.LoadLibrary(...), but
that fails with the same complaint. What am i doing wrong?

tia,
Eric