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[Salkryn]

I have now had two merchant caravans completely bypass my fortress. My depot is reachable, both on foot and by wagon. The traders show up, start moving toward the depot, and midway there they just decide to exit the map without stopping. Not sure what's causing it, unless some sort of traffic bottleneck in the tunnel to the depot is making the depot seem blocked off and the merchants just leave? Any suggestions for a fix would be much appreciated. I rely on traders for fabrics and some finished goods I'm too lazy to make myself.

[EBannion]

Do you get a message, or do they just up and leave?

What is the message?

If the message is 'bypass your inaccessible site', do you have a drawbridge, did a tree grow and block access to your depot, did you did somewhere or cause a cavein or build a statue or wall or something that might have interfered?

[Salkryn]

I don't get the bypassing inaccessible site message, they behave normally up until they're about halfway to the depot and then they suddenly turn around and leave.

[nomad_delta]

Are they perhaps getting attacked or scared by something before they reach your depot? IIRC caravans will give up pretty readily and just bail if they're getting attacked on the way, perhaps even by something relatively innocuous?

[Salkryn]

Not as far as I can see. My site has been surprisingly stable for the past three years, ever since the were-horse killed about twenty of my dwarves in year one.

[EBannion]

No unusual or potentially threatening units on the units page? Even innocuous things like animals that might be startling?

[Salkryn]

No, not that I've seen. My extensive network of cage traps, combined with my primary military training area being outdoors (to prevent cave adaptation and to provide quick response to potential sieges) have kept the wildlife fairly well contained.

[Robsoie]

On a previous fortress of mine, i got a similar situation in which the merchants immediately ran away from my depot.
The reason is that for the "roleplay atmosphere" i had put a corpse/refuse stockpile near my fortress entrance in order to let the remnants of an Ettin and a Giant exposed as a warning for my enemies.

Unfortunately i forgot the "emotion" system introduced in df2014 had the npc being horrified at the sight of any corpse the same as if they see the creature dying, leading to everyone being easily going in some kind of terrified state when they're not hardened by the dangerous life in a dwarven fortress.

Removing / atom smashing those corpses fixed the problem, the next merchant caravan didn't ran away.
So check if there are corpses of anything on your map, this could be the reason of the caravan running away, they seem to create the same emotional effect as the live creature.

[Salkryn]

That might be it. My butchers and tanners are located outside, along with the refuse stockpile, to prevent miasma from being a problem. They are quite close to the entrance, so maybe that's what spooked the merchants. Oddly enough, since my first post, the merchants seem to be behaving more normally.