There is turmoil brewing in the hearts of Zenfone 2 handsets just when they're set for an Android 6.0 Marshmallow update. And the problem is consuming any free space it can find. Deleting programs won't help. It'll only feed the problem more space to fill up.

While restricting write permission may stop the feeding frenzy, it's certainly a hassle to have to turn permissions on and off just to tackle common tasks.

There's some very spirited discussion about the issue going on over at Reddit, Asus' Zentalk forums and Stack Exchange.

Reddit user sqphocus seems to have narrowed the issue down to the directory "data/logs/modemcrash." The redditor found some commiserators over on Stack Exchange and tried deleting the entire "data/logs" folder. After eradicating the cancerous "data/logs" folder, sqphocus found that over 7 GB of space was rendered free.

"To anyone else who has this problem – either do what I did and root your phone to find and delete whatever is taking up the space (data/logs/modemcrash), or simply wait for Asus to address this problem in their next update," wrote sqphocus.

The aptly named log file system takes note of system events, which are useful for error reporting and troubleshooting. Under ideal circumstances, operating systems wipe log files to make space for new reports.

When old log files sit out by the curb and aren't picked up, a mess ensues. And that appears to be the case some of users of the Zenfone 2 have been experiencing.

Redditor sqphocus hasn't reported any additional problem with storage space, but it would seem that the solution is a temporary fix and one that needs to be applied fairly regularly, as Stack Exchange user Charles Boling reported.

"Sure I can delete them to temporarily recover the space, but... any ideas on how to prevent the problem from occurring? I suppose I might be able to write-protect the directory, but it would be nice to [either] solve the problem that's causing the crashes, or at least tell it to stop saving core dumps," wrote the Stack Exchange user.

For those opposed to rooting their Zenfone 2's, it seems the only other alternative is to wait for Asus to set the handsets on a new maintenance schedule with an update.