My set-up:
Odoo 8.0, package install according to the official odoo documentation, last updated about 2 weeks ago, Ubuntu 14.04, Amazon EC2 instance in VPC, Apache 2.2 on a separate server in the same VPC.
When I request a database using a subdomain in the http-request, I always get to the database selector (see attached network request data).
My VirtualHost definition:
#ServerAdmin [email protected]
ServerName *.twanda.ch
ServerAlias hpt-smoke.twanda.ch
ProxyRequests off
ProxyPreserveHost On
ProxyVia On
Proxypass / http://192.168.100.184:8069/
#ProxypassReverse / http://192.168.100.184:8069/
My Odoo config file:
[options]
; This is the password that allows database operations:
admin_passwd = XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
db_host = False
db_port = False
db_user = odoo
db_password = False
db_filter = ^%d$
addons_path = /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/openerp/addons,/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/openerp/custom/addons
proxy_mode = True
Also documented here: https://www.odoo.com/forum/help-1/question/how-to-set-database-filter-on-sub-domain-for-odoo-website-using-apache-web-server-64935
And it seems to be a very old bug back to Version 6.1:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/openobject-server/+bug/1065127
...and my result result:

I have found that the config option db_filter does not work at all, but the commandline option --db-filter does.
--db-filter becomes dbfilter in configuration file
https://www.odoo.com/documentation/8.0/reference/cmdline.html
Most helpful comment
--db-filter becomes dbfilter in configuration file
https://www.odoo.com/documentation/8.0/reference/cmdline.html