Hi,
My daughter has this cellular "searching" issue since updating to 14.0.1 on her iPhone 7 and I'm 100% sure that the issue is caused by the update only, as there is no hardware issue; read the below to understand why :
What I did :
Backup of the device with iTunes
Then I did an update with iTunes as I thought it could fix the issue by reinstalling 14.0.1 via Intunes : Same problem
I decided to do a restore via intunes.... The phone would be reset and I would restore it later....
I thought I 'd get crazy when I got the activation issue for at least couple of hours ; unable to connect to activation server etc.... I thought I had lost everything... :-(
At one moment, not sure why the activation passed through iTunes and the phone was reset to it's initial stage....
Guess what !!!! The issue was resolved at this time ; the phone asked for the SIM PIN and the phone was able to get the cellular data.... therefore, I know that the phone hardware is not broken.
Then I decided to restore the initial backup through iTunes to get all my daughte's data back !
After restoring the backup, the problem was there again.... :-( SO FRUSTRATING!!!!
When will they release 14.0.2 to solve this software problems ? This is such a shame !!!
APPLE I will go to Samsung to buy a brand new phone to my daughter if you're not able to fix this issue.
OR please give me an option to get rid of 14.0.1 ASAP !!!!!!!
Remember the first usage of a phone is to phone.... if you break this, then your hardware is just useless...