futile, unfruitful, unsuccessful, pointless, unproductive, vain, fruitful, useless, exhausting, tedious, wearisome, unrewarding, laborious, sisyphean, tiresome, inconclusive, ineffectual, desultory, protracted, frustrating, abortive, quixotic, painstaking, ineffective, counterproductive, tortuous, meaningless, interminable, arduous, torturous, costly, frantic, worthwhile, endless, hopeless, unavailing, misguided, stalled, wasteful, nugatory, monotonous, uneventful, unhelpful, stalemated, irrelevant, aimless, anticlimactic, unrewarded, impotent, unsatisfying, unfeasible, exasperating, thankless, incessant, barren, superfluous, acrimonious, halfhearted, elusive, worthless, unnecessary, ceaseless, disastrous, impractical, foolhardy, joyless, exhaustive, unceasing, circuitous, lengthy, mediatory, intensive, valiant, strenuous, intransigent, deadlocked, irksome, purposeless, feeble, forlorn, agonizing, boring, aborted, forgettable, feverish, unheeded, foolish, winded, dull, maddening, laughable, enervating, trite, unpractical, banal, haphazard, unending, nonsensical, unfounded, furtive, relentless, shuttle diplomacy, bootless, profitless, persevering, toilsome

fool's errand, wild-goose chase

bootless, futile, sleeveless, unproductive, vain