New install - capturing metrics but empty graphs

All,
I’ve just installed piwik. I can see records accumulating in the table “piwik_log_visit”, but when I log into Piwik to view the reports all data is blank. I am using the super user account to log in. Per another post, I added the DBStats widget, which creates a “Database Usage” tab. When I click on this tab, I receive the following error: Mysqli prepare error:

[indent][/indent]You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ‘?’ at line 1

This package has been really easy to install. I expect I have some permissions error or something. Any suggestions on troubleshooting are quite appreciated.

Your date.timezone in php.ini (defaults to America/NewYork or EST, if not set) doesn’t correspond to the timezone used by your mysql server.

I expect that php and mysql are configured for different timezones. For a quick test, on Piwik, I selected “Year” and still no information was displayed. Would differing timezones still prevent display of data?