The phrase "a fruitless attempt" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe an effort or endeavor that has not yielded any results or success.
Example: "Despite their best efforts to negotiate a better deal, it turned out to be a fruitless attempt."
Alternatives: "a futile effort" or "an unproductive endeavor."
Gordon Brown absurdly floated a state funeral in a fruitless attempt to appease the Daily Mail.
Ukrainian jets and helicopters fly overhead in a fruitless attempt to intimidate the locals.
In a fruitless attempt to win his allegiance, Charles then made him earl of Leven and Lord Balgonie (October 1641).
The most problematic number was a fruitless attempt to channel Tina Turner in a robotic falsetto rendition of "Private Dancer".
Her grandchildren stagger around at her feet, rubbing their bloodshot eyes continuously with small knotted fists in a fruitless attempt to dislodge the sand.
In the 1954 "Gojira," the government constructs a massive electrified fence around the city in a fruitless attempt to keep the creature out.
In James Dean's character, Kazan created a sensational simulacrum of himself, a sullen teen-ager — or, as he described his younger self, "a frozen wolf" — involved in a heartbreaking, fruitless attempt to win his father's attention.
A few younger fans began theatrically shoving one another, in an ultimately fruitless attempt to start a mosh pit, and I thought about how many hundreds of shows the members of Dinosaur Jr. had played together, in their early twenties and then again in their early fifties, in rooms of roughly this size.
On Monday the foreign office minister Alistair Burt made a final, fruitless attempt to persuade the human rights groups to come back on board.
For some the question boils down to an often fruitless attempt to fix Europe's natural boundaries.
