Error when trying to add external journal device to filesystem: 'Adding journal to device /dev/<device>: mkfs.ext4: Journal superblock not found'

Issue

• The mkfs.ext4 -J device=/dev/<device> /dev/<device> command fails to add an external journal to a filesystem with one of the following errors:

# mkfs.ext4 -J device=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_journal /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_fstest
...
Writing inode tables: done                            
Adding journal to device /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_journal: mkfs.ext4: Journal superblock not found 
    while trying to add journal to device /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_fstest

----------------------------

# mkfs.ext4 -J device=/dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_journal /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_fstest
mke2fs 1.41.12 (17-May-2010)
mkfs.ext4: Bad magic number in super-block while trying to open journal device /dev/mapper/VolGroup-lv_journal

• The mkfs.ext4 command succeeds when ran without the -J device flag.