Title: Invalid timezone
Last modified: May 30, 2026

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# Invalid timezone

 *  [Ken Gagne](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kgagne/)
 * (@kgagne)
 * [1 week, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/invalid-timezone/)
 * My site health was reporting a critical error with an invalid timezone:
 * > PHP default timezone was changed after WordPress loading by a `date_default_timezone_set()`
   > function call. This interferes with correct calculations of dates and times.
 * The cause was traced back to the Countdown Timer plugin. Commenting out lines
   147–150 of `fergcorp_countdownTimer.php` fixed the issue:
 *     ```wp-block-code
       		$tz = get_option('timezone_string');		if ( $tz ){ //Get and check if we have a valid time zone...			date_default_timezone_set($tz); //...if so, use it		}
       ```
   
 * This was in a PHP 8.3 environment.

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## Tags

 * [timezone](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/timezone/)

 * 0 replies
 * 1 participant
 * Last reply from: [Ken Gagne](https://wordpress.org/support/users/kgagne/)
 * Last activity: [1 week, 1 day ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/invalid-timezone/)
 * Status: not a support question