When I configure a Coverity build with the option for the plugin to perform the Coverity build, analysis and commit AND I configure the intermediate directory to be a relative path (relative to the workspace), the cov-commit-defects step reports that it can not find defects.

$ "C:\Program Files\Coverity-6\Prevent\bin\cov-commit-defects" --dir coverity-build --host coverity --port 8080 --stream "My stream trunk" --user jenkins
Coverity Defect Commit Client version 6.5.3 on Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition, 32-bit, Service Pack 2 (build 3790)
Internal version numbers: 7d3b4ace9c p-davis-push-13307.195

[ERROR] Specified intermediate directory
c:/jenkins/coverity-build
doesn't contain any usable data

One good reason for configuring the intermediate directory relative to the workspace is that it's straightforward for the build_log.txt to be made an artifact of the build (for later examination).