I have been playing the game awhile and my Character is 43rd level. I finally decide to do the Thalmor Embassy quest. I get my party clothes, go to the embassy on the carrage and am let in. The ambassidor walks up and makes a comment and then walks away (she used to start a conversation). I walk up to my inside man and and tell him I am ready. He asks me to make a deversion. At this point I can't get anybody to have a converstion with me. In fact, the only people around are the guards, embassidor, and the drunk that I usually get to create my distraction. So at this point I am unable to continue.

I am a Thane is all but Falkreach and Windhelm. I have not started the civil war quests.

I do have allot on mods (57), though none should be touching the Thalmor Embassy other than the armor and clothes update mods (which caused no issues in the past when I got to this quest).

The game is great fun without doing the main quest (that is why I am 43rd level and not complete with the Diplomatic Immunity quest), but I was hoping to be able to do it at some point.

i had the same prob in my game

i had to use the console to unlock the door your need to go throught then use the setstage command to advance the quest
setstage mq201 108 not sure if this stage is needed
setstage mq201 110 or 120 not sure the mission updatedwhen i hit the right number

Edit this quest worked every time for me before 1.4.27 this is my first new play through with this patch

installed mods just incase someone spots a conflict

Does someone know if there is a command to flag that the distraction was kicked off?

I see the suggestion above, but I am hoping there is one command to give to just fire the event for the distraction so that all else goes off as normal.

you can't but yet you stated "the drunk that I usually get to create my distraction" ?
is it you have somekind of bounty on you that stopping those conversation options?
have you tried with earlier/previous save

i have bad experience is using console command, it caused some other quest dead/unresolvable even with console command.
i would say try console command as last ditch effort.

Kelmen,

Thanks for your suggestion! It didn't work, but I appreciate the feedback.

Currently I am running a test. I have my son (who is on spring break) starting new characters and running through to the Diplomatic Immunity quest. So far he has done this with a Nord and the quest worked fine. He is now running through as a Heartland Elf (race from a mod). This is the race I am stuck at 44th level who cannot complete the Diplo Immunity quest. If the quest works with a low level character, then I will assume that waiting to do the diplo quest until 40+ levels allowed another side quest to break the main. If the test fails, then the new race will seem to be the issue.

EDIT -
The test allowed my Heartland Elf to complete the Diplomatic Immunity. I will therefore assume that something I did with my 40+ level character caused the quest to break. I will make sure to do the quest earlier in the future.

Have you tried the game with no mods selected?

My test games and my level 40+ game are using the same mods. If I do the Diplo Immunity early it works. By level 40+ it is not with the same mods installed. So my guess is that I did something earlier in the game that is causing the Diplo Immunity to not work.