Maybe the distress signal isn’t a 2,000+ year-old Jedi signal, but maybe the distress signal the matches the ID of Qui-Gon’s old Jedi star fighter. So Obi-Wan wouldn’t receive direct vision from Qui-Gon, but the fact that it is Qui-Gon’s old signal would make it an unexplained mystery linked to Qui-Gon, not necessarily suggesting Qui-Gon is still alive or exists in some other form. Feels very Twin Peaks-esque.

This would allow you to keep some of the dialogue related to them responding to a distress signal. If you had trouble cutting around the diamond, I think it could still work. Maybe this was a mystery Qui-Gon once discovered himself before he took Obi-Wan as an apprentice.

Or, if you wanted to leave Qui-Gon out of it, maybe Yoda just sent them on a “mission”, but knew this location was a conduit of the Force, and wanted them to test them for whatever reason.