I don't think it was a session issue because I tried flushing the cache and browser history many times and even tried a different browser. I also completely deleted the installation because I was testing three other ticket systems but after not loving the others went back and fresh installed osTicket and got the same error originally posted above.
I am installed on the latest Virtualmin (non-pro) and saw that Virtualmin includes an install script in their pro version so I figured osTicket must work on my setup.
When you said to look in the logs and I could not find any errors I thought maybe the logs are not working and that's when I turned on (and in the end off again) the setting in the above image attachment.
Maybe something in PHP was not getting enabled or activated and toggling that setting triggered what needed triggering. Might be interesting to ask the Virtualmin folks what happens when that setting is activated.
Anyway, loving osTicklet. Thanks for a cool project!