Whoops\Exception\ErrorException date_default_timezone_set(): Timezone ID '/' is invalid

This was a fresh install in a brand new system. I was wondering why my Time Conditions were not working. Well, they were working, but the time was off by 4 hours. Traced it to wrong time being shown. Went to Admin Settings and changed Timezone to EST time using America/New_York as the actual area chosen. When I rebooted I saw the error message below and am now unable to access the Admin Panel, or the User Panel. My softphone can still connect, but I have to run "asterisk" from command line of server to start it as FreePBX wont load. Have tried playing with timezone in php.ini and View.class.ini as shown in message. Used the timezone "America/New_York". This does not fix anything and still no access.

Whoops\Exception\ErrorException thrown with message "date_default_timezone_set(): Timezone ID '/' is invalid"

Stacktrace:
#4 Whoops\Exception\ErrorException in /var/www/html/admin/libraries/BMO/View.class.php:153
#3 date_default_timezone_set in /var/www/html/admin/libraries/BMO/View.class.php:153
#2 FreePBX\View:setTimezone in /var/www/html/admin/bootstrap.php:172
#1 require_once in /etc/freepbx.conf:9
#0 include_once in /var/www/html/admin/config.php:100