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[PatrikLundell]

Not exactly sensational, but in this case the bugger left immediately. I saw the message, and then looked at announcements, which showed that a diplomat and a caravan had arrived the current day, but not yet been announced in the game. The diplomat leaving is not in the announcements, but I suspect that's an announcement filtering issue (and I don't think I've changed that one from default).

I've got no idea why the bugger was grumpy, though. The edge where he was supposed to arrive (according to the arrival announcement) doesn't even have evil rain on it.

The caravan seems to be inbound, though.

[TubaDragoness]

As far as I know, this happens when you have no leader they can meet with. Usually because said leader has gone mad or died.

[PatrikLundell]

Good point, but it doesn't seem to be the cause in my case.

Neither the king nor the mayor was dead or insane (both are inoculated against insanity through mooding as well), nor were they particularly unhappy, and they weren't physically unreachable either (or the caravan wagons would have bypassed the fortress). I don't have any count/baron/duke, as I've rejected offers the two previous years, and had actually intended to suffer the installation of one this year...

[Saiko Kila]

And who was meeting this particular diplomat in the past year? I'm asking because in my fortress the nobles are not really interchangeable. If a diplomat arrives when the baron is not available (locked room), he just stands on the edge, and even blocks his bodyguards from appearing (they wait off-map). He starts walking only if I unlock the doors. This is despite the mayor and the king being available. So maybe in your case he wants to meet the non-existing baron...

[PatrikLundell]

The king and the mayor are the same characters as during previous visits (I replace the mayor with my selected non mandate spamming dorf every year). If the diplomat decides it want to meet the noble it offered a position for even though the offer was rejected it's a catch-22 bug.

Note that the bugger left immediately on arrival (or at least the same day, as it takes a little time to pause the game when the message appears), so it definitely didn't wait.

The reason a stationary character blocks further arrivals is, I believe, because they are all designated to arrive at the same tile (with sieges being an exception), which causes big performance groups to take so long to arrive that the first one can, at least in principle, petition before the last one has entered (and I don't know how the bug fest that's performance groups handle that, although I suspect the late arrivals will be bugged). Quester armies are the same: all of the members of an army arrive at the same tile, waits a little while, and then starts to move towards the meeting area, at which time the next one can enter.

[Dunamisdeos]

If the person the diplomat is meant to meet with is simply busy, it can have the same effect. Say, if they are tasked hauling a bun full of rocks by hand for 3 months, etc.

[PatrikLundell]

If the person the diplomat is meant to meet with is simply busy, it can have the same effect. Say, if they are tasked hauling a bun full of rocks by hand for 3 months, etc.

The diplomat left IMMEDIATELY upon arrival, as stated in the OP. If the bugger had left unhappy well after the caravan had left (not as it was announced as arriving), I wouldn't have been puzzled.

Now, as far as I know, they mayor takes care of petitions (which are processed at a high rate), while the king should take care of the diplomat, so there may still be something wrong with the king's abilities, somehow.

[Foxite]

If the person the diplomat is meant to meet with is simply busy, it can have the same effect. Say, if they are tasked hauling a bun full of rocks by hand for 3 months, etc.

According to my experience (from some version after 40.x), this is not true, and the wiki seems to agree with me. It says the diplomat will wait forever if the leader is unable to attend the meeting, but if he dies, is replaced, or gets a strange mood, the diplomat will leave. So if it's not one of those, it's possible this is a new bug.

OP, did something like this happen recently, before the diplomat arrived/left? I think it may also count if something happens to the leader before the diplomat arrives, but after he is sent out by the parent civ.

I do have one case where the diplomat may leave besides the reasons listed on the wiki. Long ago (34.11) I decided once that I was going to attack the diplomat before he even had a chance to talk to the mayor. He "left unhappy" as well, but I don't know if that was because the leader was in the squad, or because he was attacked. If it's the latter, I don't know how large the threat has to be before the diplomat leaves. Is it possible that there was some creature close by when he arrived?

[PatrikLundell]

The bug where replacing the character the diplomat was to meet after the diplomat arrived but before the meeting can take place has been fixed (the urgency of it increased significantly when visitors started pouring in to petition).

Nothing has happened to either the king or mayor, and the worst critter that may have been nearby on the map was probably a giant buzzard. Even if the diplomat WAS scared/engaged by a critter, I'd expect a fight or flight, rather than just teleporting out.

[feelotraveller]

The edge where the diplomat arrived... is it possible that they could not access the fortress - maybe an exceptionally badly timed tree growth?

Alternatively maybe was there something unusual about the previous years visit/departure.

[PatrikLundell]

Nope. I've logged the map more or less every year, and the entry point is savanna as well (and, as such, sparsely forested initially and with a reduced junglification rate). There may be single trees just up to the edge (I haven't floored it on this embark), but I think DF handles entry to avoid single trees (I've had a case where a diplomat managed to enter between two trees and my magma moat a number of years ago: I had to send a wood cutter to free the bugger).

I didn't notice anything odd the previous year. The diplomat offered a noble position, I rejected the offer, and that ended the discussion, just like the year before that. However, I haven't followed what the diplomat did after that (but I'm fairly sure no diplomat has died).

[feelotraveller]

On the brighter side of things it seems you have discovered a new form of "Hello/Goodbye" encounters. 

Would legends perhaps offer something?

[PatrikLundell]

Can't say I have a burning desire for more hello/goodbye variants

The Legends approach is a good one, but didn't pan out, unfortunately. I looked at the latest Legends export, which was done at the end of the year, but there's nothing on the diplomat about performing the anything in the job, nor is there any report for the fortress on either the caravan or the diplomat (but it does seem performance troupe members are mentioned as visiting individually, rather than as a group, which most of them were. That's totally unrelated, though).

Edit: Well, the next year the diplomat arrived correctly, so whatever caused it was apparently temporary.