Need Help with IK

Every time I create an Ik system, it works fine, everything tracks to the IK bone, and bends just fine, but when I add in a pole target, the bones will stop bending. below are two pictures demonstrating this. is it a glitch, or am I just overlooking something super simple?


As you can see, with no pole target, it bends just fine

but when I add a pole target…


this crap happens…

does anyone know how to fix this?