Hi I had the same problem with my female cat where she would pee and such in front of the litter tray in the hallway downstairs. We kept trying to figure out what was the problem was.
Was the litter, was it the litter tray because was hooded or was because it was beside the French doors? We had no idea. At this I might point out that we have 4 cats,3 boys,1 girl.
So we move that litter tray upstairs, then we went away on holiday to a holiday let where we had 2 litter tray one main hallway under the stairs and one in room I was stay in and we had no problems.

Interestingly when we got the problem started again so we remove one of the litter in the hall in to the bathroom and put litter tray my room and at night she sleeps with me and lost the litter tray in the hall she stop doing it so far so good touch wood so I hope this helps