Your 7 Days to Die server is stuck on its first start

Most likely it is not stuck. A new 7 Days to Die server downloads about 17 GB, which takes around 14 minutes, and the first start of a random map builds the terrain for several more. Until the game is ready, the Console repeats Waiting for telnet connection.... Wait for Connected with 7DTD server before you do anything.

What is normal

Do not click Stop, Restart or Kill while it downloads or builds a map. That only starts it over.

See what the game is doing

While Waiting for telnet connection... repeats, the Console cannot show the game's own lines. The game writes them to its log file instead:

1. Open Files, then the logs folder.
2. Click latest.log and scroll to the end. The last lines show what the game is loading, or the error that stopped it.

When it is really stuck

• Still waiting after half an hour (longer for a Large random map), and logs/latest.log has not changed for a while: restart once and watch again.
• The server stops by itself: read the last lines of logs/latest.log. A mod is the usual cause: Your 7 Days to Die server will not start after adding a mod.
• A line about Steam failing in the Console during the update: restart once. Steam answers again after a short while.

If it still does not reach Online, open a ticket with the last 50 to 100 lines of logs/latest.log: How to open a support ticket. See also How to fix a server that will not start.