Why does a Gazebo model plugin load successfully locally but fail to initialize in the production container?

In my development workstation I compile a Gazebo model plugin and run a world file that uses it; the plugin initializes without errors and the simulation behaves as expected. When I package the same compiled plugin and world file into a production container (using the same Gazebo version and base image), Gazebo starts but the plugin fails to load, producing no visible error in the console output. The goal is to understand why the plugin behaves differently between the two environments despite identical code and Gazebo version, considering factors such as library visibility, environment variables, and container isolation. What steps can I take to verify that GAZEBO_PLUGIN_PATH is correctly set inside the container? How can I confirm that the plugin's shared library is resolvable and compatible with the container's C library? Are there any Gazebo-specific initialization differences between a host and a container runtime that could affect plugin loading?