Changing the download default directory used by ChromeDriver doesn't work

Problem statement

I attempt to change the WebDriver’s download.default_directory, but for some odd reason, when we click a link to download a PDF, for example, it goes to the user’s Downloads folder instead of that which we specify.

Environment

I am using Katalon Studio v8.6.8 on a Windows 11 machine.

What the code looks like:

Like this:

WebDriverUtils.groovy

package me.mikewarren.myCaseScraper.utils

import org.openqa.selenium.WebDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeDriver
import org.openqa.selenium.chrome.ChromeOptions

import com.kms.katalon.core.webui.driver.DriverFactory

public final class WebDriverUtils {
    public static void SetUpDriver() {
        // create if not exists the download directory
        File downloadDir = new File(this.GetDownloadDirectory());
        if (!downloadDir.exists()) {
            downloadDir.mkdirs();
        }
        
        System.setProperty('webdriver.chrome.driver', DriverFactory.getChromeDriverPath())

        ChromeOptions options = new ChromeOptions();
        options.setExperimentalOption('prefs', [
            'download.prompt_for_download' : 'false',
            'download.default_directory' : downloadDir.getPath(),
        ]);

        WebDriver driver = new ChromeDriver(options);
        driver.manage().window().maximize();

        DriverFactory.changeWebDriver(driver);
    }

    public static String GetDownloadDirectory() {
        return "./downloads";
    }

    public static void CloseDriver() {
        DriverFactory.closeWebDriver();
    }
}

NewTestListener.groovy

import com.kms.katalon.core.annotation.AfterTestCase
import com.kms.katalon.core.annotation.BeforeTestCase
import com.kms.katalon.core.context.TestCaseContext
import me.mikewarren.myCaseScraper.utils.WebDriverUtils

class NewTestListener {
    /**
     * Executes before every test case starts.
     * @param testCaseContext related information of the executed test case.
     */
    @BeforeTestCase
    def sampleBeforeTestCase(TestCaseContext testCaseContext) {
        WebDriverUtils.SetUpDriver();
    }

    /**
     * Executes after every test case ends.
     * @param testCaseContext related information of the executed test case.
     */
    @AfterTestCase
    def sampleAfterTestCase(TestCaseContext testCaseContext) {
//      WebDriverUtils.CloseDriver();
    }
}

After much head-banging-on-keyboard, I found that the solution was to spell out the absolute pathname of the desired download directory:

public static String GetDownloadDirectory() {
        return "${RunConfiguration.getProjectDir()}/downloads";
    }