BUG: 'Sphinx parallel build error' when building docs locally prevents index.html creation

[jeffersbaxter]

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

python make.py html

Issue Description

The following error prevents doc/build/html/index.html from getting created. Here are the steps to reproduce.

1. Pulled down from upstream/original Pandas
2. Created an environment using Option 2 (pip) from https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/contributing_environment.html
3. Followed steps for building the documentation locally from https://pandas.pydata.org/docs/dev/development/contributing_documentation.html
4. After running python make.py html, received a 'Sphinx parallel build error', 'Runtime unexpected exception' error in file /doc/source/getting_started/comparison/comparison_with_sas.rst line 135`

Screenshot of error

Machine:
2020 Macbook Pro 1.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5

Expected Behavior

I expected the docs to be built and for doc/build/html/index.html to be created.

Installed Versions

pandas 3.0.0.dev0+2267.ge4a03b6e47

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit : e4a03b6
python : 3.12.0
python-bits : 64
OS : Darwin
OS-release : 23.1.0
Version : Darwin Kernel Version 23.1.0: Mon Oct 9 21:27:27 PDT 2023; root:xnu-10002.41.9~6/RELEASE_X86_64
machine : x86_64
processor : i386
byteorder : little
LC_ALL : None
LANG : en_US.UTF-8
LOCALE : en_US.UTF-8

pandas : 3.0.0.dev0+2267.ge4a03b6e47
numpy : 2.2.6
dateutil : 2.9.0.post0
pip : 23.2.1
Cython : 3.1.2
sphinx : 8.1.3
IPython : 9.4.0
adbc-driver-postgresql: None
adbc-driver-sqlite : None
bs4 : 4.13.4
bottleneck : 1.5.0
fastparquet : 2024.11.0
fsspec : 2025.7.0
html5lib : 1.1
hypothesis : 6.136.4
gcsfs : 2025.7.0
jinja2 : 3.1.6
lxml.etree : 6.0.0
matplotlib : 3.10.3
numba : 0.61.2
numexpr : 2.11.0
odfpy : None
openpyxl : 3.1.5
psycopg2 : 2.9.10
pymysql : 1.4.6
pyarrow : 21.0.0
pyiceberg : 0.9.1
pyreadstat : 1.3.0
pytest : 8.4.1
python-calamine : None
pytz : 2025.2
pyxlsb : 1.0.10
s3fs : 2025.7.0
scipy : 1.16.0
sqlalchemy : 2.0.41
tables : 3.10.2
tabulate : 0.9.0
xarray : 2025.7.1
xlrd : 2.0.2
xlsxwriter : 3.2.5
zstandard : 0.23.0
qtpy : None
pyqt5 : None

[jeffersbaxter]

I tried to troubleshoot with:

python make.py clean
python make.py html

[jeffersbaxter]

I'm willing to resolve and open a PR if a team member decides that a PR is necessary. Let me know!

[jeffersbaxter]

take

[rhshadrach]

Thanks for the report. With the information provided, I do not believe there is anything more we can do. I would suggest trying to build the documentation with --num-jobs=1 and find what code around line 135 causes errors when run in isolation.

[jeffersbaxter]

Thank you for your reply! I'll investigate this further with your suggested command and report what I find.