blank page after USPS shipping module update

A couple days ago we had someone place an order from outside the country when we noticed international shipping rates were not working. After doing some searching, I found that there was a recent update for the USPS shipping, so I downloaded it making sure it worked for our current version of zen-cart, and I installed it following the instructions. After that, when a person got to the check-out page, they got to a blank white page, and were no longer able to place an order.

After that I went back to our previous version of the usps shipping module and installed it. From there we were able to click check-out, but the page after went to a blank page that had lots of repeating text:

We looked in the php.ini and put in 'America/Anchorage' for the timezone and got the same result. Here is a snippet of some of the text we got:

tting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST' instead in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/languages/moose/english.php on line 16 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST' instead in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/languages/english/email_extras.php on line 30 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST' instead in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/languages/english.php on line 16 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST' instead in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/init_includes/init_special_funcs.php on line 40 Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST' instead in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/counter.php on line 21 Warning: mktime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.

We have since gone back to the more recent version of the usps shipping, but we still have the problem of a blank white page after clicking checkout. Does anybody have an idea on what we can do to fix this?

Our website is onceinabluemoose.com/moweb

You haven't told us anything about your PHP version, your Zen Cart customizations, etc.
Please click Reply below and answer all the questions in the Posting Tips section.

Oh sorry,

We're using Zen Cart 1.3.8a that we installed about 5 years ago.
We haven't done any addons or customizations short of our template.
Our server is on a Mac mini running OSX Server 10.6.8.
PHP version is 5.3.15 MYSQL is 14.12. DISTRIB 5.0.92

You can get rid of the date/time errors by putting a valid timezone into your php.ini file.

We noticed that the timezone in the php.ini was blank so we added America/Anchorage and still are getting the same blank white page when clicking checkout.

Glad you fixed the timezone error.

Now what errors are appearing in the logs?
Have you added the debug-logging tool? from here: http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?124-blank-page

Snippit from the end of the log:

[07-Aug-2013 22:12:04 UTC] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST' instead in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/modules/shipping/usps.php on line 1583
[07-Aug-2013 22:12:04 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'DateTime::__construct(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST' instead' in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/modules/shipping/usps.php:1586
Stack trace:
#0 /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/modules/shipping/usps.php(1586): DateTime->__construct('tomorrow')
#1 /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/modules/shipping/usps.php(756): usps->zen_usps_shipdate()
#2 /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/modules/shipping/usps.php(267): usps->_getQuote()
#3 /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/classes/shipping.php(129): usps->quote('')
#4 /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/modules/pages/checkout_shipping/header_php.php(170): shipping->quote()
#5 /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/index.php(36): require('/Library/WebSer...')
#6 {main}
thrown in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/modules/shipping/usps.php on line 1586
[07-Aug-2013 22:12:04 UTC] PHP Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/classes/db/mysql/query_factory.php on line 177
[07-Aug-2013 22:12:04 UTC] PHP Deprecated: Function ereg() is deprecated in /Library/WebServer/Documents/MORA/moweb/includes/classes/db/mysql/query_factory.php on line 177

WestcoAK:

We're using Zen Cart 1.3.8a that we installed about 5 years ago.
Right. And PHP versions have changed multiple times every year since then, including numerous big changes that require big changes to your very old version of Zen Cart.
Your problems are going to continue to get worse until you upgrade to a modern version of Zen Cart. So get that into your plans A.S.A.P.

WestcoAK:

[07-Aug-2013 22:12:04 UTC] PHP Fatal error: Uncaught exception 'Exception' with message 'DateTime::__construct(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/Anchorage' for 'AKDT/-8.0/DST'
Further, your USPS errors are caused by changes made to PHP in the way PHP handles dates, and your error messages indicate that you've still not fixed your timezone settings, so you'll need to fix that in order to proceed with using that module.