How to suppress an OS X error dialog in applescript or how to make sure a remote share is connected and sharing before using a mount volume command - error-handling

Question

Okay so I've been a few days on this, and I've only found one similar issue. Unfortunately it wasn't resolved fully.
I have a script that checks for a network connection, checks for the remote computer, and mounts the volumes.
The script works as expected and is error handled with a try blocks but in the mountVolume() handler I get the same error dialog box that Daniel from the other post gets when the share is unavailable. e.g. external drive is unplugged from remote computer or hasn't finished connecting yet.
Once I dismiss OS X's error dialog(s), my error dialog comes up. I could just get rid of my dialog but the thing is that for every share (4 now) I've tried to mount that fails, I get a separate OS X error dialog that I have to dismiss.
If I can get the script to suppress these boxes I can use one box of my own in the script for all errors.
If I can't then I would like a way to check if the share exists on the REMOTE computer before I try to use mount volume thus circumnavigating the error all together.
Thanks any ideas would be appreciated.
Here is my code:
global userName
global userPass
global ipAddress
set ipAddress to "###.###.###.###"
set userName to short user name of (system info)
set userPass to do shell script ("security find-internet-password -a " & userName & " -s " & ipAddress & " -g")
on FileExists(theFile)
tell application "System Events"
if exists file theFile then
return true
else
return false
end if
end tell
end FileExists
on FolderExists(theFolder)
tell application "System Events"
if exists folder theFolder then
return true
else
return false
end if
end tell
end FolderExists
on doCleanUp()
if FolderExists("/Volumes/SHARENAME") then
tell application "Finder" to eject disk "SHARENAME"
end if
set checkPath to ((path to home folder as text) & "SHARENAME")
if FileExists(checkPath) then
do shell script ("rm ~/SHARENAME")
end if
end doCleanUp
on checkNet()
try
do shell script ("nc -z " & ipAddress & " 445")
return true
on error
return false
end try
end checkNet
on mountVolume()
try
mount volume "smb://" & ipAddress & "/SHARENAME"
return true
on error errText number errNum
log {errText, errNum}
return false
end try
end mountVolume
on makeAlias()
if FolderExists("/Volumes/SHARENAME") then
set checkPath to ((path to home folder as text) & "SHARENAME")
tell application "Finder"
if not (exists file checkPath) then
make new alias to disk "SHARENAME" at path to home folder
end if
end tell
end if
end makeAlias
set tryAgain to 0
set ipValid to false
set doRetry to true
doCleanUp()
repeat while doRetry
repeat 3 times
if not ipValid then
set ipValid to checkNet()
end if
end repeat
if ipValid then
set volMounted to mountVolume()
if volMounted then
set aliasCreated to makeAlias()
if aliasCreated then
return
else
set notificationMessage to "Could not create alias."
display alert "An error has occurred." message notificationMessage as critical
return
end if
else
set notificationMessage to "Could not mount remote volume."
display alert "An error has occurred." message notificationMessage as critical
return
end if
else
set retryCheck to display alert "Can't connect. Do you want to retry?" buttons {"Yes", "No"} default button 1
set doRetry to button returned of retryCheck as boolean
if not doRetry then
doCleanUp()
set notificationMessage to "Could not connect to Local Area Network."
display alert "An error has occurred." message notificationMessage as critical
end if
end if
end repeat

Answer 1

The error dialog is being generated outside of AppleScript, so you can’t trap it with a try statement. The only way I know of to avoid the dialog is to create the mount point and mount the volume yourself with the mount shell script instead of the mount volume command, for example:
do shell script "mount -t smbfs //169.254.0.0/SHARENAME /path/to/sharepoint“
If there is an error the try statement will still catch it, just without the external dialog.