By commenting lines 381, 382 & 383 in Install.php, It will skip that step and start the installation;

i.e.

/*
if(version_compare(PHP_VERSION, '5.3.0', '>=')) {
$this->requireDateTimezone(array('PHP Configuration', 'date.timezone set and valid', 'date.timezone option in php.ini must be set in PHP 5.3.0+', ini_get('date.timezone')));
}
*/

It works for me, cheers!

i just came across this too...i think its the new verison of SS? as my previous 30+ sites worked fine!
anyway, checked my php.ini and found it was commented out!

[Date]
; Defines the default timezone used by the date functions
;date.timezone = Europe/London

just removed the ";" restarted apache and now is all well.

List of places: http://php.net/manual/en/timezones.php

I set to one of these and it worked, but then when I enabled mod_rewrite on Ubuntu with "sudo a2enmod rewrite" - a requirement further on - it broke the timezone again.

??

To echo Seidlitz, the Canada/Pacific time zone and all of the "other" zones were deprecated. Why? idk, but it's probably where this problem lies. Seems a silly effort on the part of PHP...

http://cl.ly/292V0u2z1w1O2m2V0238
http://www.php.net/manual/en/timezones.others.php

Hi,

I am trying to install SilverStripe on ubuntu and got the following error:

date.timezone setting and validity date.timezone option in php.ini must be set correctly.

I set the date.timezone = "Europe/Stockholm" and restart apache server but it didnt work.

As an alternative solution, I installed the PECL timezonedb module: sudo php /usr/share/php/peclcmd.php install timezonedb, then add extension=timezonedb.so to php.ini and restart apache again BUT I still have a problem.
I would really appreciate if someone can help me to solve this problem. I spent so much time on it.

Thanks in advance!

date.timezone is a weird setting and doesn't like the quotes. Try just date.timezone = Europe/Stockholm

this response is correct :

just removed the ";" restarted apache and now is all well.

I just hit this error on a new install of 2.4.5. I'm running a Mac using the native Apache/PHP. My timezone was set to Australia/ACT. This is a valid entry and confirmed in phpinfo(). I changed it to Australia/Melbourne and SS is now happy to proceed.

It may be worth changing the timezone and changing back to see if that fixes the problem.

This worked for me too. Thanks for the tip. :)