Advice needed: plugin disabled health check on WordPress site

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Hello everyone,

I have a question about best practices in WordPress plugin development. I’m looking for opinions on whether the following changes are appropriate for the CMS and if it’s worth maintaining such a site.

As a freelancer, I encountered a slow-performing site with a custom theme and a single plugin developed by another developer for the site owner’s needs. Here are the key issues with the plugin:

1. It is protected by ionCube, making part of the source code inaccessible.
2. The plugin developers have disabled some admin features, such as the Tools section and the Health Check (/wp-admin/site-health.php).

There are other solutions and requirements for the site that also raise questions, but the disabling and disappearance of the health check is the most striking example of changes compared to what WordPress offers.

Communication with the original developer is challenging. When asked how to check the site’s health, the response was: “The file wp-admin/includes/class-wp-site-health.php is not in the distribution. Our WordPress is standard. We don’t remove anything, so it must be a third-party plugin or should work.” When asked why they disabled this, the response was: “The module was hidden because the data it shows could give an incorrect view of the site’s work status.”

I can understand wanting to keep code “protected”, but in over a decade of working with WordPress, I’ve never encountered claims that class-wp-site-health.php is not part of the distribution or that it shows incorrect data. There are clear contradictions here that might be resolved with further communication, but I am not sure if I should get involved.

I realize this site might not be worth my involvement, but the situation is frustrating. **How can I explain to the site owner the issues with their project? Any insights or opinions would be appreciated.**

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