"There was a problem communicating with Google servers, try again later" error Yet another occurrence of this when setting up a new phone, in this case a OnePlus 5 with the H2OS (Chinese) OS.  I installed the current Oxygen OS official 9.0.9 from XDA, used the OnePlus transfer, and despite many strategies, could not get rid of this error.
I tried:

Wiping the cache, other data in Google Play
Ditto other Google services
turned off WIFI, turned on, etc.
Reboot
Reinstalled Google play
Installed Google APK from APK store  

I had seen these elsewhere working for some folks.
Finally the only thing that worked for me was doing a factory reset.
Hope one of these approaches works for others!
Having more potential solutions in your tool box increases your chances of success.

YMMV  "Good luck, Jim!"