WordPress detects the wrong timezone

Turns out there was a previous attempt to fix the timezone:

date_default_timezone_set('America/Sao_Paulo');

was called on the init hook.

When later the correct UTC time, local time and timezone were properly set on the server, this caused a conflict.

Removing this solved the issue.

Hata!: SQLSTATE[HY000] [1045] Access denied for user 'divattrend_liink'@'localhost' (using password: YES)