in ROP:infernal there are a number of tainted story flaws, which can only be taken by tainted characters, such as impious friend. However, in order to be tainted you have to have the tragic life story flaw or plagued by demons story flaw. Yet the core rules state that you should not have more than one story flaw.
Is this a massive glitch in rules checking, or have I missed something?
Two Story Flaws, actually. You can just only have one Major one. But you could have a Major and Minor Story Flaw, or two Minor ones.
You are mixing up Personality and Story flaws.
As per ArM5 p.37:
- Magi and Companions can only have 1 Story flaw; Grogs cannot have any.
- Magi and Companions can have up to 2 Personality flaws, only one of which can be Major; Grogs can only have 1 Minor Personality flaw.
I don't think you have to have one of those Store Flaws to have a tainted character with tainted Virtues. Otherwise all those with Summoning would be required to take one of those Story Flaws.
LuckyMage, you're mixing up Personality Flaws and Story Flaws.
Regarding story flaws, it's worded differently than that. It says one should not take more than 1 story flaw for both Companions and Magi.
Aw, crap, yeah. My bad, guys.
Can/should. Potato/potato. 
Do I need to make fun of your native language? 
Feel free to do so. But if you do, you have to do it in French. 
What I meant is that, in the context of the rulebook, it seems clear that "should not" clearly means "cannot, unless dispensation is obtained from the SG/troupe". So I was simply paraphrasing, as you well know. 8)
"Should not" does not mean "Cannot". It means it is possible, but is discouraged. So you can, just people will look at you funny unless it really works out well. There are other places where the two-storyflaws conflict comes up. Can't remember them off hand. But it is possible to gain new story flaws via initiation or elsewise as it is.
I myself rule that you can indeed have two story flaws, only one major, and more than two Personality flaws but only one major. No one ever has abused this tolerance and rarely do they take full advantage of it.
Aside from the strength of wording between should and can, it is clear the general intention of the core rules is for a character to only have one story flaw, and these situations require a character to have one story flaw in order to have the second. Now with faeries there is an explicit change made that faeries can have 3 minor personality flaws and one major because, well they are faeries and prone to drama.
Summoning is not a tainted virtue
However as I was re-reading there is a statement that virtues and flaws which have another category may take them during character creation as well or receive them in response to infernal warping, which means tainted works much differently than heroic traits, and the main point of it seems to be to limit half the flaws to tainted traits.
It isn't always. But it is sometimes. I'm pretty sure Summoning can be Tainted (non-Infernal, Supernatural) or Infernal (Supernatural). Isn't there a whole piece going into this and the other Goetic Arts only being Infernal?
That sounds far more correct that the statement in the OP.
Ironically, I am the OP, and you seem to be confusing infernal with tainted- there are a number of virtues and flaws in the ROP:infernal book which are listed as tainted, and summoning is not amongst them, even infernal summoning. tainted refers to virtues and flaws that come from the demonic realm severely messing with your life, while infernal summoning may be gained without that happening (though afterwards it might happen as a result...)
The statement is as follows "Some of the virtues and flaws listed below are categorized as Tainted. These are for characters who have been tainted by demons, as described under Tainted Characters, below. Tainted virtues and flaws also belong to another category, such as supernatural, and characters who are not tainted may take them during character creation or receive them in response to infernal warping."
You may note that the second sentence is confusing, as the grammar is not even in proper English.
In the sidebar under tainted children it states "Tainted player characters have either the Tragic Life Flaw or the Plagued by Supernatural Entity Flaw."
Yes, I know. And, as I said, your newer post is correct, fixing errors from the OP.
Thanks for the whole thing on reading English, but I'm really not having a problem with that. No, I am not confusing anything. If you only look at one spot in RoP:tI you'll see Summoning is listed only as Supernatural. If you read further, you'll see there are further notes. The same is true for Ablating, Binding, and Commanding though the further notes are different. Ablating, Binding, and Commanding are always infernal. Summoning need not be Infernal, it can come from other realms. However, if it comes from another realm it is Tainted. This is what I've been referring to. Summoning derived from Faerie or Magic instead of Infernal is Tainted according to RoP:tI. (I'm leaving out Divine because that brings up other issues that are irrelevant here.) This was my example of something Tainted that I knew showed up elsewhere without those Story Flaws, allowing me to know that those Flaws are not required to take any Tainted Virtue/Flaw, just some Tainted Virtues/Flaws.
I don't believe Summoning being Tainted is listed as a requirement anywhere... No mention of Taint being necessary is there in the RoP:F description of (Faerie) Summoning, though I can't access RoP:I to cross-reference the rules right now.
Wow, first of all, lets clarify that right now you are basically posting for gloating rights as I see it "ha ha you were wrong and you will now see things my way."
In response to that being the perceived essence of your post, let me quote the entirety of what you refer to as 'later on'
which means that according to this text Faerie summoning is tainted and will be perceived as infernal when checked by divine powers.
The tainted attribute being refered to is defined as "Some of the virtues and flaws listed below are categorized as Tainted. these are for characters who have been tainted by demons, as described under tainted characters below."
It may use the same word, but it is clearly not the same thing. Summoning is not a tainted virtue.
If you go to ROP:F p. 132, it lists 4 types of summoning, only one of which is always associated with the infernal. So even your claim that it is always tainted is contradicted by other books.
You're refering to the box p. 115 of RoP: I?
If so, please note that summoning is noted to be tainted, not Tainted.
Knowing you, I'm sure you appreciate the difference.
Further, as the LuckyMage mentions, Summoning as described in RoP: F seems to make no mention of taint (or Taint for that matter). Ofcourse, from the below-referenced box in tC&tC, that might actually be a different Summoning supernatural ability 
Interestingly though, the note about being Summoning being tainted is repeated in tC&tC (box , p. 31), without any mention of any flaws being necessary, despite the wealth of references in that box.
If my memory serves, "tainted" describes three things in Realms of Power: The Infernal:
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Powers that are described as "tainted," like (Spirit) Summoning, detect as infernal to powers that work like Sense Holiness and Unholiness. This is only meaningful for powers that are not otherwise infernal, though.
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Tainted Virtues and Flaws are referenced by other rules, but do not inherit any other properties besides being categorized as Tainted, the same way some Virtues and Flaws are Supernatural or Hermetic.
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Tainted Characters are a type of Mythic Companion, the rules for which reference Tainted Virtues and Flaws, but any character can take Tainted Virtues and Flaws, not just Tainted Characters, and taking Tainted Virtues or Flaws does not make a character a Tainted Character.
Hope that helps!
actually as written tainted vitues and flaws may only be taken by non-tainted characters if they are also of another type.
There is a dialect issue here too.
I read an interview several years ago with Rick Priestly (formerly, Games Workshop) about this issue. He said that he had been happily writing rules using formulations such as "should not ..." and "may not ...", and in the UK the rules-set worked as he intended. British players interpreted "should not... " and "may not ... " as "cannot ...".
Then Games Workshop started expanding into the US, in a big way, and he realised that whenever a rule said "should not... " or "may not... ", American players were tending to read this as "can ... ". So, the exact opposite of what he intended.
ArM5 is nominally written in US English. But it is mostly written by speakers of UK English, or other colonial dialects of English. So, I think that the intended read of "should not" is "cannot" rather than "can".