Installation 2.2.2 no timezone configured?

Trying to do an update to 2.2.2 on apache 2 linux, php 5.3.10 ... I get an error:

FATAL ERROR: MODX Setup cannot continue.

To use PHP 5.3.0+, you must set the date.timezone setting in your php.ini. Please do set it to a proper timezone before proceeding. A list can be found here.

However, the date/timezone is set in the php.ini [it is set correctly and apache has been restarted several times]

no errors in error logs etc, & the phpinfo(); confirms that there is a dte/timeone set...

What could the problem be?

Did you find any solution to this? I'm getting the exact same error message when I'm trying to do a brand new install of MODx 2.2.2. I'm also running PHP 5.3. Even tried installing MODx 2.2.1 instead, but I'm getting the same error.

I have never had any problems like this with any sites running on servers with PHP versions prior to 5.3...

I got around it by setting the timezone in the .htaccess -

but it's sporadic, some sites will have the problem, others will not even on the same php version..