BUG: json_normalize KeyError Key not found

[Opostol]

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

import pandas as pd
df = pd.json_normalize(data={'meta1':{'meta2':'meta_val'}, 'record1':{'record2':[{'rec1':'rec_val1'},{'rec1':'rec_val2'}]}}, meta=[['meta1','meta2']], record_path=['record1','record2'])

Issue Description

fact behaviour: KeyError: "Key 'meta2' not found.

Expected Behavior

expected df =
rec1 meta1.meta2
0 rec_val1 meta_val
1 rec_val2 meta_val

Installed Versions

INSTALLED VERSIONS

commit : d9cdd2e
python : 3.12.4.final.0
python-bits : 64
OS : Windows
OS-release : 10
Version : 10.0.19045
machine : AMD64
processor : AMD64 Family 16 Model 4 Stepping 2, AuthenticAMD
byteorder : little
LC_ALL : None
LANG : None
LOCALE : Russian_Russia.1251

pandas : 2.2.2
numpy : 2.0.0
pytz : 2024.1
dateutil : 2.9.0.post0
setuptools : None
pip : 24.0
Cython : None
pytest : None
hypothesis : None
sphinx : None
blosc : None
feather : None
xlsxwriter : None
lxml.etree : None
html5lib : None
pymysql : None
psycopg2 : None
jinja2 : None
IPython : None
pandas_datareader : None
adbc-driver-postgresql: None
adbc-driver-sqlite : None
bs4 : None
bottleneck : None
dataframe-api-compat : None
fastparquet : None
fsspec : None
gcsfs : None
matplotlib : None
numba : None
numexpr : None
odfpy : None
openpyxl : None
pandas_gbq : None
pyarrow : None
pyreadstat : None
python-calamine : None
pyxlsb : None
s3fs : None
scipy : None
sqlalchemy : None
tables : None
tabulate : None
xarray : None
xlrd : None
zstandard : None
tzdata : 2024.1
qtpy : None
pyqt5 : None

[Opostol]

issue raised to describe pull request
#59225

[rhshadrach]

The current design requires meta fields to be part of the records. The example in the OP does not meet this requirement. Am I right in saying that you desire to be able to specify meta fields that are not part of the records?

[rhshadrach]

Closing in favor of #60254